“...it was born out of habits of mind produced by Christianity: that if you sacrificed yourself you would somehow attain the object of your desires. It was a knife of an idea, a cruel instrument of sacrifice...”

“I have written a memoir here and there, and that takes its own form of selfishness and courage. However, generally speaking, I have no interest in writing about my own life or intruding in the privacy of those around me.”

“I don't need new boots I got bluchers back down home. Eff the effing bluchers I'll buy you new adjectival effing elastic sided boots.”

“I did not know that history is like a blood stain that keeps on showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession, no matter how many times we pint over it.”

“She did not begin to tell real lies until Rosa was in hospital suffering that filthy rot that left her all eaten out inside, as light and fragile as a pine log infested with white ant”

“She held out her hand, like a man. He hesitated, then took the hand and shook it. It was very warm. You could not help but be aware of the wild passage of blood on the other side of its wall, veins, capillaries, sweat glands, tiny factories in the throes of complicated manufacture. [He] looked at the eyes and, knowing how eyes worked, was astonished, not for the first time, at the infinite complexity of Creation, wondering how this thing, this instrument for seeing, could transmit so clearly its entreaty while at the same time—-Look, I am only an eye—-denying that it was doing anything of the sort.”

“But now she could not bear the way she sounded. She was not a person anyone could love....And thus fled to her room. There she wept, bitterly, an ugly sound punctuated by great gulps. She could not stop herself. She could hear his footsteps in the passage outside. He walked up and down, up and down.'Come in,' she prayed. 'Oh dearest, do come in.'But he did not come in. He would not come in. This was the man she had practically contracted to give away her fortune to. He offered to marry her as a favour and then he would not even come into her room.Later, she could smell him make himself a sweet pancake for his lunch. She thought this a childish thing to eat, and selfish, too. If he were a gentleman he would now come to her room and save her from the prison her foolishness had made for her. He did not come. She heard him pacing in his room.”

“He was tender with her. He wiped her eyelids with his handkerchief, not noticing how soiled it was. It was stained with ink, crumpled, stuck together. Her lids were large and tender and the handkerchief was stiff, not nearly soft enough. He moistened a corner in his mouth. He was painfully aware of the private softness of her skin, of how the eyes trembled beneath their coverings. He dried the tears with an affection, a particularity, that had never been exercised before. It was a demonstration of 'nature.' He was a birth-wet foal rising to his feet.”

“To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.”

“...it was born out of habits of mind produced by Christianity: that if you sacrificed yourself you would somehow attain the object of your desires. It was a knife of an idea, a cruel instrument of sacrifice...”