Keith Roberts

A death was more than an ending; it was like pulling a thread from a richly patterned cloth.

The years had a way of piling themselves one atop the next, unnoticed and uncounted; that was how young men turned into old ones.

The waves were indifferent, and the wind; and the rocks neither knew nor cared who owned them, Christ’s Vicar or an English King.

It’s a terrible thing, being afraid. It’s like an illness; like wanting to fall down, and not being able to faint. You see you never get used to it. You live with it and live with it and every day it’s worse; and one day it’s the worst of all. I thought, when it...happened, I wouldn’t be afraid. But I was wrong....