Susan Howatch

Quotes

1. Ghosts, unshriven souls, psychological hang-ups — they all exist in the mind to put people through hell — they're just different ways [...] of looking at a given situation.

2. 

   'To be distracted is pardonable. To be incoherent is simply unobliging.'

3. 

   'I deserve to be thought a coward. I am a coward. I'm just so bloody afraid of dying — of losing —'

4. 

   Kester wrote about people and since human nature doesn't change his observations hadn't dated.

5. 

   'Bloody men! sometimes I feel I hate them all.'

6. 

   'Little girls don't stay playmates. Little girls become big girls and big girls become sweethearts.'

7. 

   Romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied, it anaesthesises them from the pain of their disordered second-rate lives [...] If romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied then surely nostalgia is the opiate of the disillusioned, for those who see all their dreams come true and find themselves living in a nightmare.

8. 

   'Friendship's best,' I said, 'and friendship's forever because no baby can come along to spoil it.'

9. 

   One must be rational about such matters and being rational need not mean being cold.

10. 

    Distrust grows out of lies. Wrong-doing grows out of distrust. Tragedy grows out of wrong-doing. But out of honesty grows love and love's so powerful, it'll be like a suit of armour, protecting Robert, protecting you.

11. 

    'Success on that scale don't make for happiness. Look at Asquith. Why does he drink? I wouldn't want you to end up a drunkard like that.'

12. 

    Christ, all you psychiatrists think about is sex — sex, sex, sex, sex, sex ...