I saw that this cataclysm must be an expiation for some barbarous crime of civilisation, some terrible human lie. What the lie was, I had too little … - John Fowles

I know what I am to him. A butterfly he has always wanted to catch. I remember (the very first time I met him) G.P. saying that collectors were the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn’t really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline — and me. But of course, he is right. They’re anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything.

It’s rather like your voice. You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven’t any choice. But it’s what you say that counts. It’s what distinguishes all great art from the other kind.

Knowledge of my atrocious selfishness, settled on me. All those bitter home truths she had flung at me, right from the beginning…and still loved me; was so blind that she still loved me. One day she had said: When you love me (and she had not meant “make love to me”) it’s as if God forgave me for being the mess I am; and I took it as chicanery, another emotional blackmail, to make me feel essential and so give me a sense of responsibility towards her.