“Like a Frenchman, far from home, catching a whiff of Gauloise.”

“How to seperate the humiliation from the loss, that's the catch. You can never be sure if what tortures you is the pain of being without someone you love or the embarrassment of admitting that you have been rejected.”

“It was behaviour that I thought not far from racism, sexism or any other kind of prejudice or snobbery. 'Because you are not cute, I do not want to know you' was, to me, hardly different from suggesting 'because you are gay, I dislike you”

“I flicked my eyes over to Steve again and saw him straighten. He would need a diversion just to start.“Explanations?” I bellowed. “Explanations? There’s your explanation…there!” I stabbed a finger dramatically towards the far corner of the room.Pathetic, really. I mean, talk about the oldest trick in the book. But it’s a good book, and the trick would have been cut from subsequent editions if it didn’t sometimes work.”

“I suppose this was the first time I had ever felt an urge not to be. Never an urge to die, far less an urge to put an end to myself - simply an urge not to be. This disgusting, hostile and unlovely world was not made for me, nor I for it.”

“Sex does not enrich or deepen a relationship, it permanently cheapens and destabilises one. Everyone I know who is unfortunate enough to have a sex-mate, joy-partner, bed-friend, love-chum, call them what you will finds that--after a week or two of long blissful afternoons of making the beast with two backs, or the beast with one back and a funny shaped middle or the beast with legs splayed in the air and arms gripping the sides of the mattress--the day dawns when Partner A is keen for more swinking, grinding, and sweating and Partner B would rather turn over and catch up with Jeeves and Bertie.”

“It was as if he grew his hair long and smoked cigarettes because he liked to, not because he liked being seen to. This was dangerously subversive.”