“It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather a failure of the imagination - an inability to tolerate mistery.”

“I could feel Monika nudging me furiously at this point, but I refused to look at her. I wasn’t feeling particularly reverent about my mother’s deadness, or about the vicar, but I do despise that ghastly, ‘You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?’ approach to religious occasions. As a young man, I often goaded my believing friends with crudely logical questions about God. But as the years have passed, I have found myself hankering more and more for a little cosy voodoo in my life. Increasingly, I regard my atheism as a regrettable limitation. It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather, a failure of the imagination - an inability to tolerate mystery: a species, in fact, of neurosis. There is no chance of my being converted, of course - it is far too late for that. But I wish it wasn’t.”

“There it was again - the perverse refusal to acknowledge my hostility. She seemed to me like some magical lake in a fairy tale: nothing could disturb the mirror-calm of her surface. My snide comments and bitter jokes disappeared soundlessly into her depths, leaving not so much as a ripple.”

“Talking to him is rather like talking to a school play.”

“But that I should have ended up in a place like this seems too custom-made a nightmare to be the work of mere ill fortune.”

“It's always a disappointing business confronting my own reflection. My body isn't bad. It's a perfectly nice, serviceable body. It's just that the external me- the study, lightly wrinkled, handbagged me- does so little credit to the stuff that's inside.”

“Always mind the distance between your dreams and your reality.”