“There existed very long saxophones from years ago. The player sat on their chair like a cellist; that same sort of feeling to it as well - unlike for example the way a harpist would be: the whole act differing in a very fundamental sense. Although harpists are fine. There is nothing to be said against harpists by any means whatsoever.”

“...I used to think there was something up with any female that liked me, I mean, if she didni get bored with my company, there had to be something up with her. Otherwise how come she wasni with somebody else? If she was normal she would be. Ergo she had to have a personality problem.”

“Ye wake in a corner and stay there hoping yer body will disappear, the thoughts smothering ye; these thoughts; but ye want to remember and face up to things, just something keeps ye from doing it, why can't ye no do it; the words filling yer head: then the other words; there's something wrong; there's something far far wrong; ye're no a good man, ye're just no a good man. Edging back into awareness, of where ye are: here, slumped in this corner, with these thoughts filling ye. And oh christ his back was sore; stiff, and the head pounding. He shivered and hunched up his shoulders, shut his eyes, rubbed into the corners with his fingertips; seeing all kinds of spots and lights. Where in the name of fuck...”

“But lassies are trained for it, in a manner of speaking; it's part of the growing-up process for them, young females. It doesn't happen with boys, just if you're a lassie, you've got to learn how not to talk; plus how not to look, you get trained how not to look. How not to look and how not to talk. You get trained how not to do things.”

“Ninety-nine per cent of traditional English literature concerns people who never have to worry about money at all. We always seem to be watching or reading about emotional crises among folk who live in a world of great fortune both in matters of luck and money; stories and fantasies about rock stars and film stars, sporting millionaires and models; jet-setting members of the aristocracy and international financiers.”

“The whole concept of "violence" is flawed from the get-go, for it makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate force. The use of the word in this generic sense implies that the "violence" of the criminal is no different from the "violence" of the policeman who subdues him. Originally a Marxist idea, this worked its way into the mainstream beginning about 50 or 60 years ago, when people began to think it very clever and sophisticated to act as if there were no difference between the two things, or that the difference was only a matter of how "society" had distributed power between them. Since then, the idea of "violence" as generic and not in its original sense -- related to "violate" -- of criminal and illegitimate violence has steadily gained ground until it is now a commonplace of moral debate, in America as it is everywhere else in the Western world.”

“I think that if a real princess was lost in this modern world and she could be whatever she wanted, she would be a musician,' Blanche said slowly. 'A violinist, or a harpist. That would be the only place where she could find solace for her lost kingdom.”