He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is." Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. What would half the world's poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?

Childhood is the one prison from which there's no escape, the one sentence from which there's no appeal. We all serve our time.

Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.

Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.

Every island to a child is a treasure island.

Love, always love. Perhaps that’s what we’re all looking for.

It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.