The buildings ... had suffered the inevitable shrinkage of places revisited.
Brutality is sometimes easier to endure than ridicule.
one doesn't really grow older; it's just that other people grow younger.
Angry and frustrated, the journalists set about making bricks without straw.
suicide can be used as a very cruel weapon, you know. It can be the ultimate revenge, leaving a scar that a living person may carry to the grave.
It is often interesting, in retrospect, to consider the trifling causes that lead to great events. A chance encounter, a thoughtless remark - and the tortuous chain reaction of coincidence is set in motion, leading with devious inevitability to some resounding climax.