# Quote — John Banville, The Untouchable

> Ah, what heights of contempt I was capable of in those days! Now, in old age, I have largely lost that faculty, and I miss it, for it was passion of a sort.

- Author: [John Banville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville.md)
- Book: [The Untouchable](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Banville#The_Untouchable_(1997)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/ah-what-heights

## More from this book

> Man is only lovable in the multitude, and at a good distance.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/man-is-only.md)

> I suspect that significant first encounters only take on their aura of significance in retrospect.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/i-suspect-that.md)

> I was pondering the question, which I have pondered before, of whether such great revelatory moments really so occur, or if it is only that, out of need, our lives so lacking in drama, we invest past events with a significance they do not warrant.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/i-was-pondering.md)