He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his paunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged with existence.

There was a serenity about him always that had the look of innocence, when, technically, the word was no longer applicable.

Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself, human nature is on you. Holmes and Bradshaw are on you. They scour the desert. They fly screaming into the wilderness. The rack and the thumbscrew are applied. Human nature is remorseless.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure - the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

All extremes are dangerous.

To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?…There is nobody—here among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.

The truer the facts the better the fiction.