“It's never pleasant to have one's unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.”

“Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive - or worse.”

“I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it is.”

“Then, Patrick, you do feel it too? You do feel ... something? It would be so bleak if you felt nothing. That's what scares women, you know.''I do know, and you needn't be scared. I feel something all right.''Promise me you'll always treat me as a person.''I promise.''Promises are so easily given.''I'll fulfill this one. Let me show you.'After a shaky start he was comfortably in the swing of it, having recognised he was on familiar ground after all. Experience had brought him to see that this kind of thing was nothing more than the levying of cock-tax, was reasonable and normal, in fact, even though some other parts of experience strongly suggested that what he had shelled out so far was only a down payment.”

“One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. . .I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.”

“I don't allow people of your sort to stand in my way. That's what you're leaving out of account. I'm having Christine because it's my right. Do you understand that? If I'm after something, I don't care what I do to make sure that I get it. That's the only law I abide by; it's the only was to get things in this world...With me you just haven't a hope in hell.”

“How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.”