“As Ossie Jones crept out of his body and into the mist, his heart murmured till it was silent.”

“He coughed out the words, which took shape of his cigarette stained teeth turned into birds bereft of wing. He stammered the bloodied words into the palm of his hand, polished them into clearness with a stainless handkerchief, and gifted them with wings, and sent silence, where all words uttered in the universe, and in all languages on the planet, are stored for all time, or forgotten forever.”

“Oi sweetheart, is your mummy a thief?''No she's not.' she said, sucking her thumb to signal a temper tantrum.'Well, then, m'dear,' said the thief, 'who stole those diamonds and put them in your eyes?”

“How's the world treating you this morning?''Like a baby treats a diaper.”

“She smelled him. The blood was rushing through his veins. She could sniff out the heat in his body. His odour saturated her nostrils and filled her lungs.”

“Each pedestrian could see no halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow, whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but adhered to it, and persistently beautified it; till the erratic motions seemed an inherent part of the irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing a component of the night's mist; and the spirit of the scene, and of the moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with the spirit of wine.”

“The only shame George Webber felt was that at one time in his life, for however short a period, he broke bread and sat at the same table with any man when the living warmth of friendship was not there; or that he ever traded upon the toil of his brain and the blood of his heart to get the body of a scented whore that might have been better got in a brothel for some greasy coins. This was the only shame he felt. And this shame was so great in him that he wondered if all his life thereafter would be long enough to wash out of his brain and blood the last pollution of its loathsome taint.”