“Personal finances are like people’s personal health, crucial and tragic to the sufferer but tedious to the listener. ”

“Oskar showed that virtue emerged where it would, and the sort of churchy observance bishops called for was not a guarantee of genuine humanity in a person.”

“The taste one gets of death in dreams I find more penetrating and atmospheric than the ordinary fear one might suffer while awake.”

“The dogs were really keening now, like Irish widows.”

“The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.”

“We humbly beg your kind applause,” murmured Mary Brenham, with a creative frown that reminded Ralph of Betsey Alicia and made him sharply aware there was nothing that moved him like a cloud of intellection on a desired face.”

“Now, even if he and Dr B made their decision, D didn't know if he had the rigour to feed the cyanide to the ill, or to watch someone else do it and maintain a professional disposition. It was absurdley like the argument in one's youth, about whether you should approach a girl you were infatuated with. And when you'd decide, it still counted for nothing. The act still had to be faced.”