I think that knowing the future might be disturbing, but it can be good as well; knowing and not being frightened, having the time to make all one’s arrangements, and knowing that there are good hands waiting for the things and people one cares about.

At breakfast!′ said Louise in an awed voice. ‘A man who can read poetry at breakfast would be capable of anything.

But, as a form of exercise, I cannot recommend carrying a suitcase for a mile or so along sand and shingle at the dead of night, and then edging one’s way along a narrow path where a false step will mean plunging into a couple of fathoms of sea that, however quiet, is toothed like a shark with jagged fangs of rock.

I found that I was reaching, automatically, for another cigarette; my eyes and throat felt hot and aching, and my brain stupid. I let it slip back into the packet. I had smoked too much that evening already.

The sour smell was not the smell of fungus. It was unlit incense, and cold ashes, and unsaid prayers. I.

People are straightforward enough, on the whole, till one starts to look for crooked motives, and then, oh boy, how crooked can they be!

I supposed there were circumstances in which it was correct, even praiseworthy, for a girl to bash a man’s head in with a lamp while he was kissing her...

Happiness changes as you change. It’s in yourself.

So here at last were the first lines of the story that was later to come clear, a story of spite and bigotry, too mean and petty to be called tragedy, but tragic for all that.

William’s mother, dead these six years. He spoke of her with love, but without grief. Six years, and whatever the loss, happiness steals back.