Susan Howatch Quotes

I could always walk out on a husband. But I could never turn my back on a friend.

Every woman needs a special friend of her own sex with whom she can 'have a haircombing' about everything from menstruation to male monsters, and Julie had become that kind of special friend.

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

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.

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

The English don't have opinions about the Irish. They have prejudices.

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.

There are standards of immorality as well as standards of morality, Robert. Make sure yours are high.

Acquiring carnal knowledge is like swimming in the sea ... The sea's so beautiful to look at, so wonderful to swim in, but you must never bathe unless it's safe. People so often drown in the sea and some coasts are so very dangerous, ... like the Coast of Gower.

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

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.

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

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

But never mind, all the best heroines are beautiful orphans, abandoned to their fate, and the one thing that's certain about my situation is that I'm going to be a heroine when I grow up.
Can I be a hero?
Well, I suppose you can try. But you'll have to try very hard.

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.