“Too much thought is bad for the soul, for art, and for crime. It is also a sign of middle age.”

“It was not so much what Vicki did that night: it was what she said. It was not so much her behaviour: it was her vocabulary!”

“The meal was breakfast: the subject, utility clothing. 'As for the stuff they're turning out for men nowadays,' said Mr Thwaites bitterly, 'I wouldn't give it to my Valet.'Mr Thwaites' valet was quite an old friend. An unearthly, flitting presence, whose shape, character, age, and appearance could only be dimly conceived, he had been turning up every now and again ever since Miss Roach had known Mr Thwaites. Mostly he was summoned into being as one from whom all second-rate, shoddy, or inferior articles were withheld. But sometimes things were good enough for Mr Thwaites' valet, but would not do for Mr Thwaites. ”

“She was decidedly attractive, he saw, but in an ill-natured, ungracious way. Because of his connection with Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott, Johnnie had an extensive knowledge of the external appearance and different modes of behavior of a great variety of attractive women: they came up to the office in shoals, with their nails dipped in blood and their faces covered with pale cocoa. And some were charming and simple beneath their masks, and some were complex and arrogant. This girl belonged to the latter type, the type which would ignore or stare surlily at him if he spoke to them, until they learned that the actual money came through him, when their manner sweetened wonderfully. This girl wore her attractiveness not as a girl should, simply, consciously, as a happy crown of pleasure, but rather as a murderous utensil with which she might wound indiscriminately right and left, and which she would only employ to please when it suited her purpose. They were like bad-tempered street-walkers, without walking the street.”

“God help us, God help all of us, each one, every one, all of us'. Patrick Hamilton at the concusion of 'The Slaves of Solitude'.”

“Though it had no wide reputation, all manner of people frequented 'The Midnight Bell.' This was in its nature, of course, since it is notorious that all manner of people frequent all manner of public-houses - which in this respect resemble railway stations and mad-houses.”

“Only at dawn should a man awake from excess - at dawn agleam with red and sorrowful resolve.”