Elizabeth Bowen said this quote

If they should only be ill,' she said, 'there would be so many little things we could do for them. It does seem in a kind of a way an opportunity. I often think it is only when a man is ill that he understands what a woman means in his life.

~ Elizabeth Bowen

Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone else's husband.

~ Elizabeth Bowen

Writers do not find subjects, subjects find them.

~ Elizabeth Bowen

Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say Oh look! Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there.

~ Elizabeth Bowen