one doesn't really grow older; it's just that other people grow younger.

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.

I can never pass a cat in the street without greeting it and exchanging a few words, and the cat invariably replies.

one doesn't really grow older; it's just that other people grow younger.

Brutality is sometimes easier to endure than ridicule.

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.

The buildings ... had suffered the inevitable shrinkage of places revisited.