It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?

Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower.

God save us always,' I said 'from the innocent and the good.

All good novelists have bad memories.

Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.

A writer doesn't write for his readers, does he? Yet he has to take elementary precautions all the same, to make them comfortable.