But I think the most harmful change brought about by Victorian science in our attitude to nature lies in the demand that our relation with it must be purposive, industrious, always seeking greater knowledge.

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

If anything might hurt her, silence would; and I wanted to hurt her.

Forgetting’s not something you do, it happens to you. Only it didn’t happen to me.

On the whole, dialogue is the most difficult thing, without any doubt. It's very difficult, unfortunately. You have to detach yourself from the notion of a lifelike quality. You see, actually lifelike, tape-recorded dialogue like this has very little to do with good novel dialogue. It's a matter of getting that awful tyranny of mimesis out of your mind, which is difficult.

Piers is always going on about how he hated Stowe. As if that solves everything, as if to hate something means it can't have affected you.

Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation.