104 Quotes by Edward St Aubyn

It seems people spend the majority of their lives believing they’re dying, with the only consolation being that at one point they get to be right.

I see the author as the person who has written; the writer, the one involved in the process of writing. And they’re not necessarily friends. The writer is the one I want to reinforce; the author would just feed on the reviews – so I’m in favour of starving him.

David dropped the hose on the gravel path, thinking how useless to him Eleanor had become. She had been rigid with terror for too long. It was like trying to palpate a patient’s swollen liver when one had already proved that it hurt. She could only be persuaded to relax so often.

They had never met, but she had come to understand what had driven Victor’s wife to seek refuge in a full set of Snoopy mugs.

The thing about the ‘Melrose’ novels is that I have to feel they’re impossible when I set out.

Looking after children can be a subtle way of giving up... They become the whole ones, the well ones, the postponement of happiness, the ones who won’t drink too much, give up, get divorced, become mentally ill. The part of oneself that’s fighting against decay and depression is transferred to guarding them from decay and depression. In the meantime one decays and gets depressed.

Unlike the riotous appetites of adolescence, his present cravings had a tragic tinge, they were cravings for the appetites, metacravings, wanting to want.

Once he had taken heroin he could imagine being without it;.

It’s no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.