“Darling stop being philosophical it doesn't suit you, it makes your nose red.”

“You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can't even remember your name.”

“Anyway, Art [making] is a magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds, isn't that so, dear lady?”

“This was most alarming, what sort of terrible toil had deranged the poor woman? Would I also have to work day and night till I couldn't stop talking? Perhaps they made her shovel coal for a huge furnace, probably they kept a private crematorium, old people do keep dying off. Maybe they had a chain gang too and we would have to chop stones and sing sea shanties (this would explain why she wore the yachting cap.)”

“The skeleton was as happy as a madman whose straightjacket had been taken off. He felt liberated at being able to walk without flesh. The mosquitoes didn't bite him anymore. He didn't have to have his hair cut. He was neither hungry nor thirsty, hot nor cold. He was far from the lizard of love.”

“Do you believe, she went on, that the past dies?Yes, said Margaret. Yes, if the present cuts its throat.”

“I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse.”