“For he was drinking too much. Not uncontrollably nor offensively, but still he seldom seemed to have a glass out of his hand.”

“She put out her hand and touched his forearm, as she would have touched some piece of porcelain or sculpture, just for the sheer animal pleasure of feeling its shape and curve beneath her fingertips.”

“He's threatening to breed polo ponies, but he's always been a man of great ideas, but little action, so I don't suppose he will.”

“Not his real name, darling, but my own name for him. I never thought it could be like this. I never thought one could be so close, and yet so different to a single human being. He is everything I've never been, and yet I love him more than any person or anything I've ever known.”

“I'm getting too elderly to travel the length of the country for a free hangover.”

“Oscar and I are very close, and yet I know that part of him is still withdrawn, even from me. As though part of him was still in another place. Another country. Journeying, perhaps. Or in exile. Across the sea. And I can't be with him, because I haven't got the right sort of passport.”

“It was better not to get too close to another person. The closer you got, the more likely you were to get hurt.”