“There was not even any hope for Miss Roach that Mr. Thwaites would ever die.”

“Thus looked at from outside, these guests --in this dead-and-alive dining room, of this dead-and-alive house, of this dead-and-alive street, of this dead-and-alive little town--in grey, dead winter...”

“Dawn, slowly filling Church Street with grey light, disclosed another day of war. Because it did this, this dawn bore no more resemblance to a peace-time dawn than the aspect of nature on a Sunday ...”

“She rebuked herself for this thought. /she was, she saw, always having thoughts for which she rebuked herself. It then flashed across her mind that the thoughts for which she rebuked herself selfom...”

“What a thing this sleeplessness was!...If sleep, she thought, could be compared to a gentle lake ina dark place, the sleeplessness was a roaring ocean, a raging, wind-buffeted voyage, lit with mad ...”

“It was not for the piano-tuner to know that in this still, grey, winter-gripped dining-room, this apparent mortuary of desire and passion (in which the lift rumbled and knives and forks scraped upo...”

“Failed relationships can be described as so much wasted make-up.”

“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”

“Aside from the obvious, Francesca, what do you want in return for supplying information? Bones asked, getting back to the subject. You to take me, she replied at once. Not gonna happen! I spat, squ...”

“Alan Campbell opened one eye.From somewhere in remote distances, muffled beyond sight or sound, his soul crawled back painfully, through subterranean corridors, up into his body again. Toward the l...”

“Love gives the best of highsBut also the worst of hangovers.”

“I very carefully levered up an eyelid and shut it again fast. A merciless sunbeam had squirted straight in, making my brain bleed.”