Violet Bradman: Can you foretell the future?
Madame Arcati: Certainly not. I disapprove of fortune-tellers most strongly.
Violet Bradman: Oh, really - why?
Madame Arcati: Too much guesswork and fake mixed up with it - even when the gift is genuine - and it only very occasionally is - you can't count on it.
Ruth Condomine: Why not?
Madame Arcati: Time again. Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked.
Ruth Condomine: You mean because it has never yet been proved that the past and the present and the future are not one and the same thing?
Madame Arcati: I long ago came to the conclusion that nothing has ever been definitely proved about anything.

Violet Bradman: I must say I find bicycling very exhausting. Those awful hills...
Madame Arcati: Just knack. Down with your head, up with your heart, and you're over the top like a flash and skimming down the other side like a dragonfly.

Charles Condomine: If you're trying to compile an inventory of my sex life, I feel it only fair to warn you that you've omitted several episodes. I shall consult my diary and give you a complete list after lunch.

Charles Condomine: It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

Charles Condomine: What do you suppose induced Agnes to leave us?
Ruth Condomine: The reason was becoming increasingly obvious, my dear.
Charles Condomine: Mm. We must keep Edith in the house more.