“He was a successful general because he knew men. He knew that all men will go to hell over three things: alcohol, money . . . and sex. This fellow apparently hadn't. Better for him if he had!”

“The room where they were dancing was very dark.... It was queer to be in his arms.... She had known better dancers.... He had looked ill.... Perhaps he was.... Oh, poor Valentine-Elisabeth.... What a funny position!.... The good gramophone played.... Destiny!.... You see, father! ... In his arms! Of course, dancing is not really.... But so near the real thing! So near!... 'Good luck to the special intention!...' She had almost kissed him on the lips ... All but!... Effleurer, the French call it.... But she was not as humble.... He had pressed her tighter.... All these months without.... My lord did me honour.... Good for Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre.... He knew she had almost kissed him on the lips.... And that his lips had almost responded.... The civilian, the novelist, had turned out the last light.... Tietjens said, 'Hadn't we better talk?...' She said: 'In my room, then! I'm dog-tired.... I haven't slept for six nights.... In spite of drugs...' He said: 'Yes. Of course! Where else?....”

“He was in a beastly hole. But decency demanded that he shouldn't act in panic. He had a mechanical, normal panic that made him divest himself of money. Gentlemen don't earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don't do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean!... So you can't make money.”

“Upon my soul!' Tietjens said to himself, 'that girl down there is the only intelligent living soul I've met for years.' A little pronounced in manner sometimes; faulty in reasoning naturally, but quite intelligent, with a touch of wrong accent now and then. But if she was wanted anywhere, there she'd be! Of good stock, of course: on both sides! But positively, she and Sylvia were the only two human beings he had met for years whom he could respect: the one for sheer efficiency in killing; the other for having the constructive desire and knowing how to set about it. Kill or cure! The two functions of man. If you wanted something killed you'd go to Sylvia Tietjens in sure faith that she would kill it: emotion, hope, ideal; kill it quick and sure. If you wanted something kept alive you'd go to Valentine: she's find something to do for it. . . . The two types of mind: remorseless enemy, sure screen, dagger ... sheath!Perhaps the future of the world then was to women? Why not? He hand't in years met a man that he hadn't to talk down to - as you talk down to a child, as he had talked down to General Campion or to Mr. Waterhouse ... as he always talked down to Macmaster. All good fellows in their way ...”

“The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things.”

“Old Campion had once said he believed - he positively believed, with shudders - that Christopher desired to live in the spirit of Christ. That had seemed horrible to the general, but Mark did not see that it was horrible, per se... He doubted, however, whether Christ would have refused to manage Groby had it been his job. Christ was sort of an Englishman and Englishmen did not as rule refuse their jobs... They had not used to; now no doubt they did.”

“He wouldn't write a letter because he couldn't without beginning it 'Dear Sylvia' and ending it 'Yours sincerely' or 'truly' or 'affectionately.' He's that sort of precise imbecile. I tell you he's so formal he can't do without all the conventions there are and so truthful he can't use half of them.”