Louis Bayard

“Such a nice little pastiche. Of course, a true Elizbethan theater wouldn't have a roof, would it? Or such comfortable chairs. All the same quite charming.I wonder what play they're putting on now?Oh, its ... Love's Labour Lost.Well, isn't that apropos?Is it?I wonder if it's modern dress. No, I don't wonder at all.On that particular question, I have been quite driven from the firld. Everywhere one goes now it's Uzis at Agincourt, Imogen in jeans, the Thane of Cawdor in a three-button suit. Nest thing you know, Romeo and Julie will simply text each other. Damn the balcony. OMG,Romeo. ILY 24-7.”

“I'm a solitary sort, I get chaffed by too many elbows.”

“I've often thought a blind man could find his way through London simply by gauging the changes in innuendo: mild through Trafalgar Square, less veiled towards the river.”

“For reasons I have yet to define, Signor Arpelli stood out from his colleagues. The curled brim of his hat, perhaps. A certain mingling of gravity and levity- I thought the masks of Janus had merged in his eyes.”

“Well, as to that, all I'll say is, you can't take out a fellow's heart before he's ready to give it up.”

“I'm a man of a certain age - old enough to have been every kind of fool- and I find to my surprise that the only counsel I have to pass on is this: Never let your name be found in a dead man's trousers.”