‘Look at her,’ said Patrick, ‘pacing around the cage of her Valentino dress, longing to be released into her… — Edward St Aubyn

Mind you, I don’t know why people get so fixated on happiness, which always eludes them, when there are so many other invigorating experiences available, like rage, jealousy, disgust, and so forth.

Johnny stopped and leaned over, partly from curiosity, but also to disguise the fact that his sexual efforts could not compete with the mention of such a large sum of money.

Looks didn’t last forever and she wasn’t ready for religion yet. Money was kind of a good compromise, staked up somewhere between cosmetics and eternity.