Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.

I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying.

A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.

Fear is the touch of death, death reminding us of its existence.

The world is like an enormous set of scales. When evil begins to outweigh good, angels cram themselves in on the lighter side. You can't see them, but there they are, restoring the balance.

If you tell anything to a woman ... it's like putting it in the papers.