The evil of one murder is infinite, and my guilt is like my beauty - eternal. I cannot be forgiven, for there is no one to forgive me for all I've done.

….it was a brave man’s fear. I knew what he meant. What must a brave general feel when he knows the battle has gone against him and nothing remains but death?

It was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world...on a windswept ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves.

I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened; that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on every thing said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to assert an understanding of something before the thought was finished, or to argue with a swift, irresistible impulse -- the things which often make dialogue impossible. And after a long interval he said, 'I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.

-You are on the verge of being truly mad. -No, not at all. Look at me. I can tie my shoelaces. See?

I read The Old Curiosity Shop before I began Blackwood Farm. I was amazed at the utter madness in that book.

Without memory there can be no insight. Without love, there can be no appreciation.