Susan Howatch

Again, be patient. And have courage. Remember, everything passes, even the most unspeakable horrors.

'Barbarity's everywhere, that's the truth of it. Absolutely anyone is capable of absolutely anything.'

'My dear Papa, I had no idea you were such a cynic!'

'That's not cynicism, that's honesty — as you well know, dealing with criminals as you do, seeing the human race continually at its worst.'

Life's for living, not for mourning ... Live in the present, not the past.

Recovering from an ill-starred romance is, after all, to anyone of sufficient will-power and self-respect, purely an attitude of mind.

Sexual desire has to be dead as a doornail before a man and a woman can be genuinely at peace in a platonic relationship.

'... we have to be kind, we have to be charitable and we can't condemn people just because they get in a mess...even the best people can get into ghastly messes,...we must never judge other people too harshly because although they can make awful mistakes they can still be very nice people.'

Boredom on social occasions is an inescapable hazard for the over-educated, and for the over-ambitious it must be endured.

Death had won my three friends; Death had almost won me. But now I was the one who was going to win and I was going to win by outwitting Death over and over again ... To compete with Death, as I had discovered in the mountains, was to know one was alive.