“It terrified me, right down to my very core, to be alive while the rest of the world was dead.”

“Tea and water give each other life,' the Professor was saying. 'The tea is still alive. This tea has tea and water vitality.”

“I knew that somehow this loneliness was linked to all my other fears and worries and premonitions and to my sense, that fall, of the terrible fragility of everything around me.”

“Tea and water give each oter life,' the Professor was saying. 'The tea is still alive. This tea has tea and water virality,' he added. '... Afterwards, the taste still happens... It rises like velvet... It is a performance.”

“I was waiting at table tonight, on account of it being such a big party, and just as I was coming round with the savoury, one of the ladies went and broke her necklace by fidgeting with it at the ta ble. She thought she picked 'em all up but this one rolled under my foot and I stood on it tight until all the ladies went upstairs. I wanted to give it to you. You're a black pearl, Bertha, that's what you are and it's only right that you should have it.”

“So I just live with my insomnia. I do crossword puzzles, or wander out to the music room and fool around on the piano, or read. Those late hours when the world is completely still, when the only sound is the rustle of the air in the vents and the wind visiting the trees outside, when the darkness is tucked tight around the house and you feel as life itself the movements of your own consciousness-these are wonderful hours to read. There is no interruption.”

“...when I see you here amidst all this, I realise that I proposed to a very small part of you. I thought I was giving you a home and a position, but here I see that I am taking you away from so much.”