“It’s good that you feel bad,’ she said, after some thought. Not much thought, obviously, but some. ‘If you felt nothing, it would mean there is no love, no passion. And we are nothing without passion.”

“There weren’t many good things to be said or felt about my situation. Not many at all. But the rule is that after any engagement, won or lost, you replay it in you mind to see how much you can learn. So that’s what I did...”

“I didn’t really know the answer to this myself, but saying that wasn’t going to get me off the hook. I started talking without any clear idea of what was going to come out. ‘Because sex causes more unhappiness than it gives pleasure,’ I said. ‘Because men and women want different things, and one of them always ends up being disappointed. Because I don’t get asked much, and I hate asking. Because I’m not very good at it. Because I’m used to being on my own. Because I can’t think of anymore reason.’ I paused for breath.‘All right,’ said Ronnie. She turned and started walking backwards so she could get a good view of my face. ‘Which of those is the real one?’‘B,’ I said, after a bit of thought.”

“I looked at her and sighed. In another world, I thought to myself, it might have worked. In another world, in another universe, in another time, as two quite different people, we really might have been able to put all of this behind us, take off to some sun-drenched Caribbean island, and have sex and pineapple juice, non-stop, for a year.”

“I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.It could rain in a room this big.”

“Imagine that you have to break someone's arm.Right or left, doesn't matter. The point is that you have to break it, because if you don't...well, that doesn't matter either. Let's just say bad things will happen if you don't.Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly -- snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint -- or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and then increasing the pressure in the tiniest of increments, until the pain becomes pink and green and hot and cold and altogether howlingly unbearable?Well exactly. Of course. The right thing to do, the only thing to do, is to get it over with as quickly as possible. Break the arm, ply the brandy, be a good citizen. There can be no other answer.Unless.Unless unless unless.What if you were to hate the person on the other end of the arm? I mean really, really hate them.”

“The sexual mechanisms of the two genders are just not compatible, that’s the horrible truth of it. (...)This is a truth we dare not acknowledge these days - because sameness is our religion and heretics are no more welcome now than they ever were - but I’m going to acknowledge it, because I’ve always felt that humility before the facts is the only thing that keeps a rational man together. Be humble in the face of facts, and proud in the face of opinions, as George Bernard Shaw once said. He didn’t, actually. I just wanted to put some authority behind this observation of mine, because I know you’re not going to like it.”