Ruth Rendell

“Maybe being married is talking to oneself with one's other self listening.”

“She wasn't there. He wouldn't have had to look too closely. She stood out from others like an angel in hell or a rose in a sewer.”

“You make someone into a object of – not so much of pity as of weakness, sickness, stupidity, inefectiveness, do you see what I mean? You hit them for their stupidity and their inability to respond, and when you’ve hurt them, marked them, they’re even more sick and ugly, aren’t they? And they’re afraid and cringing too. Oh, I know this isn’t very pleasant, but you did ask.”“Go on” he said.“So you’ve got a frightened, stupid, even disabled person, silenced, made ugly, and what can you do with someone like that, someone who’s unworthy of being treated well? You treat them badly because that’s what they deserve. One thinks of poor little kids that no one love because they’re dirty, sovered in snot and shit, and always screaming. So you beat them because they’re hateful, they’re low, they’re sub-human. That’s all they’re good for, being hit, being reduced even further.”

“It was useless arguing with people like her. They had stereotyped minds that ran along grooves of stock response and the commonplace.”

“You couldn’t love someone the way he had loved her and then be turned off them in five minutes by nothing more than lies and daydreams. Could you? Could you?”

“We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real.”

“I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden".”

“I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes.”

“Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”