I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair.

He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive.

All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.

It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and fine-tuning that alter fate, the close and distant influences, the accidents of character and circumstance.

Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience.

By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

Oblivion seemed the only reasonable option.