What have we all got to expect that we allow ourselves to be so lined with disappointment?

Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood - for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness - the sense that is where we really belong.

Thrillers are like life, more like life than you are.

Cruel men cry easily at the cinema.

I'm only saying I want you to be happy. I hate your being unhappy. I don't mind anything you do that makes you happy." You just want an excuse. If I sleep with anybody else, you feel you can do the same - any time." That's neither here nor there. I want you to be happy, that's all." You'd make my bed for me?" Perhaps.

Sooner or later... one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.