I had very good dentures once. Some magnificent gold work. It's the only form of jewelry a man can wear that women fully appreciate.

Lust is not the worst thing. It is because any day, any time, lust may turn into love that we have to avoid it. And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

It was like having a box of chocolates shut in the bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much.

From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year...death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.

He's satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can't be satisfied.

Except for the sound of the rain, on the road, on the roofs, on the umbrella, there was absolute silence: only the dying moan of the sirens continued for a moment or two to vibrate within the ear. It seemed to Scobie later that this was the ultimate border he had reached in happiness: being in darkness, alone, with the rain falling, without love or pity.