„Elizabeth never found out.“

„War“

„Pepys made another vow to leave women alone and this time kept it until it ran out on 15 May.“

„His hostility and aggression take on particularly dark colours when he describes himself making sexual advances to Penn’s daughter Pegg.“

„God’s name comes up in his pages as a tic of usage, routine rather than reverential (…)“

„Without his enthusiasm for himself, the Diary would hardly have begun to take shape as it did.“

„Home meant the familiar reek which everyone breathed.“

„The shamelessness of his self-observation deserves to be called scientific.“