104 Quotes by Edward St Aubyn

There’s a blast of palpable stupidity that comes from our host, like opening the door of a sauna. The best way to contradict him is to let him speak.

I feel on the verge of a great transformation, which may be as simple as becoming interested in other things.

The Talking Heads pulsed from every speaker. ‘The centre is missing,’ gasped David Byrne, and Patrick could not help agreeing with him. How did they know exactly what he was feeling? It was spooky.

Above all, she was a baby, not a ‘big baby’ like so many adults, but a small baby perfectly preserved in the pickling jar of money, alcohol and fantasy.

Were the ironies of taxation any better: raising money for schools and hospitals and roads and bridges, and spending it on blowing up schools and hospitals and roads and bridges in self-defeating wars?

Nobody ever died of a feeling, he would say to himself, not believing a word of it, as he sweated his way through the feeling that he was dying of fear. People died of feelings all the time, once they had gone through the formality of materializing them into bullets and bottles and tumours.

He couldn’t help wondering whether love could really consist of an unpleasant combination of obsession, self-pity, rivalry, lust and day-dreaming. These characteristics didn’t seem to distinguish it from the rest of life, except by their intensity.

Talking of ‘letting go of a lot of stuff,‘” his father handed the phrase back to Seamus, held by the corner like someone else’s used handkerchief...

Nothing so stubborn could change until it became more painful to avoid than to confront.