Reality In Our Century Is Not Something

Perhaps The Sexual Life Is The Great Test. If We Can Survive It With Charity To Those We Love And With Affection To Those We Have Betrayed, We Needn't Worry So Much About The Good And The Bad In Us. But Jealousy, Distrust, Cruelty, Revenge, Recrimination ... Then We Fail. The Wrong Is In That Failure Even If We Are The Victims And Not The Executioners. Virtue Is No Excuse.

We Remember The Details Of Our Story, We Do Not Invent Them.

It Seemed To Scobie That Life Was Immeasurably Long. Couldn’t The Test Of Man Have Been Carried Out In Fewer Years? Couldn’t We Have Committed Our First Major Sin At Seven, Have Ruined Ourselves For Love Or Hate At Ten, Have Clutched At Redemption On A Fifteen-year-old Deathbed?

The Subject Of A Novel Is Not The Plot. Who Remembers What Happened To Lucien De Rebempre In The End?

Insecurity Twists Meanings And Poisons Trust. In A Closely Beleaguered City Every Sentry Is A Potential Traitor.