“My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman who brought no good to anyone, to murder whom would pardon forty sins, who sucked the lifeblood of the poor, and you call that a crime ?”

“She belongs to a race of delightful women, who never do any harm, whom everybody calls good, and who are very severe on those who do not pretend to be good.”

“Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft.”

“It is wrong to kill anyone. It is wrong to kill those who kill. It is wrong to kill the executioner. The laws on murder must be killed!”

“It was you, you who brought me the pardon. Pee on me, won't you. It would be like benediction. O, what a sleepwalker I have been!”

“I'm sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.”