“But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.”

“Poets never die, I thought. They just fail in the end.”

“We have just discovered our dear colleague butchered in a hotel room, and you wish to discuss literature?”

“She hated him and loved him, longed for him and loathed him, and cursed herself for feeling anything at all”

“And John Kearns whispered into my ear: "Do you see it now? *You* are the nest. *You* are the hatchling. *You* are the chrysalis. *You* are the progeny. *You* are the rot that falls from the stars. ...”

“I confessed I did not have an opinion; I was only thirteen, and this was my very first dismemberment.”

“Ah. And then you kill him.""No," Arkwright replied patiently. "We are British. We avoid murder if we can help it.{...}”

“The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.”

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”

“But, of course, you might be asking yourself, 'Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don't know! I still don't know what it is! I'm too knackered and confused to work it out. That curtain pole really ...”

“Theres no way you can kill someone and get to the other side of the experience unchanged.”

“Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled enemy?”

“He had also learned that there is no use murdering people; there are always so many left, and if you tried to murder them all you would never get anything else done.”