Guilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment: only there does its satisfaction lie.

'We live' writes Pursewarden somewhere 'lives based upon selected fictions. Our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time — not by our personalities as we like to think. Thus every interpretation oа reality is based upon a unique position. Two paces east or west and the whole picture is changed.

We are all hunting for rational reasons for believing in the absurd.

I'm trying to die correctly, but it's very difficult, you know.

Love is like trench warfare - you cannot see the enemy, but you know he is there and that it is wiser to keep your head down.

It's unthinkable not to love - you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin.

Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked.