The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

The moon hung over the planet Earth, a dead thing over a dying thing.

There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves.

He was one of the most supremely stupid men I have ever met. He taught me a great deal.

Edith Sitwell's interest in art was largely confined to portraits of herself.

We lay on the ground and kissed. Perhaps you smile. That we only lay on the ground and kissed. You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out. But whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know. But pity yourself for what it did.