The idea would be to live half a life very well.

'I don't like being alone at all,; she said. 'To live a life without physical intimacy is half a life.'
I thought this was true, but if that was the case the idea would be to live half a life very well.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 189

If old women are supposed to not want to cause any trouble, Celia had decided to cause as much trouble as possible

Celia was one of the few women I knew who was very like herself. She was more like herself than I was like myself. She did not try to please anyone and certainly did not fit the patriarchy's idea of what an old woman should be like: patient, self-sacrificing, servicing everyone's needs, pretending to be cheerful when she felt suicidal. If old women are supposed to not want to cause any trouble, Celia had decided to cause as much trouble as possible.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 124

How would a writer set about the massive task of giving a female character no consciousness

How would a writer set about the massive task of giving a female character no consciousness, not even an unconscious life, as if that were the most normal thing in the world? Perhaps it was normal in his world. And yet it takes a lot of work to construct any sort of character in fiction.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 17

She cried like a hosepipe that had been slashed

When Thandiwe had to leave the house she cried like a hosepipe that had been slashed. Tears spurted from her eyes on to the towel wrapped around her belly. She cried while her mother held her in her lap and dressed her in the brand new school shoes she had bought from her wages. Her little girl arms that smelt of Lux were wrapped round her mother's neck.

D. Levy, Things I don't want to know (2013), 47-8

She has never wanted her own children to be brave

She does not want her to make trouble for her daughters and tell them to get some real problems when they complain about not having the right brand of trainers for school. She has never wanted her own children to be brave. Brave like the children on leaking boats fleeing wars. How many medals does a child need pinned on to her pyjamas? Nothing had taught her that having to summon an abundance of courage, far more than anyone should have to bear is healthy for a child.

D. Levy, The cost of living (2018), 165

It seemed to me that satnav had switched off the way that drivers inhabited a city.

It seemed to me that satnav had switched off the way that drivers inhabited a city. It made them rootless, ahistorical, unable to trust their memory or senses, to measure the distance between one place and another. The river Thames, referred to by Londoners as the river, was of no geographical significance to the driver. .... There were no landmarks. The driver did not look at the Albert Halll when we passed on the northern edge of South Kensington, he was absent to its physical presence, and instead was existentially alone but together with his satnav.

D. Levy, The cost of living (2018), 138-9