You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world.

But why do you want to talk to me?' He is going to say: 'Because you look so kind,' or 'Because you look so beautiful and kind,' or, subtly, 'Because you look as if you'll understand....' He says: 'Because I think you won't betray me.' I had meant to get this mean to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I've been hurt.... 'Because I think you won't betray me, because I think you won't betray me....' Now it won't be so easy.

As it was in the beginning, ... is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.

...I know all about myself now, I know. You've told me so often. You haven't left me one rag of illusion to clothe myself in.

A room is, after all, a place where you hide from the wolves. That's all any room is.

very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really. They get more this or more that and of course look a bit different. But inside they are the same.