As if something’s missing. I feel as if there’s some puzzle to which I don’t hold all the pieces. Does that sound terribly silly?

I don’t think he’ll be able to see you over the radio,” Frances ventured. “But I still want to look nice for him.” Margaret.

The young are right to be fearless, she reminded herself. Remember yourself at that age.

I realized with mild disappointment that charity could mean something quite different here: that it was not enough to give, you had to be seen to be giving. Hospitals bore the names of their donors in six-foot-high letters above the door. Balls were named after those who funded them. Even buses bore lists of names alongside their rear windows. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Gopnik were known as generous benefactors because they were visible in society as being so.

And I pressed send, realizing, as it whooshed into the ether, that I had now condemned myself to unknown hours of e-mail-related anxiety while I waited for him to respond.

If women try to get you to read something it’s because they fancy you. They want to be in your head. Try to make you think of stuff.

Why do you think nobody writes love letters like these anymore?” she says instead, pulling one from her bag. “I mean, yes, there are texts and e-mails and things, but nobody sends them in language like this, do they? Nobody spells it out anymore like our unknown lover did.

This thing has shown her that age is no protection against the hazards of love.

Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Wear those stripy legs with pride.

I learned a long time ago, Ellie, that ‘if only’ is a very dangerous game indeed.