One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.

For reasons not always at the time explicable, there are specific occasions when events begin suddenly to take on a significance previously unsuspected, so that, before we really know where we are, life seems to have begun in earnest at last, and we ourselves, scarcely aware that any change has taken place, are careering uncontrollably down the slippery avenues of eternity.

[T]here is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing.

The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd - one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like - one writes novels about it.

It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them.

Parents. . . are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfil the promise of their early years.

Dinner at the Huntercombes' possessed only two dramatic features - the wine was a farce and the food a tragedy.