love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.

Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the."

All dramatic realism is somewhat sadistic; an audience is persuaded to watch something that makes it uncomfortable and from which no relief is offered - no laughter, no tears, no purgation.

Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted. Spicy court-memoirs, the lives of gallant ladies, recollections of an ex-nun, a monk's confession, an atheist's repentance, true-to-life accounts of prostitution and bastardy gave our ancestors a penny peep into the forbidden room.

On the wall of our life together hung a gun waiting to be fired in the final act.

In violence, we forget who we are

love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.