It turns out now that the Arabs were the most successful imperialists of all time; since to be conquered by them (and then to be like them) is still,… - V. S. Naipaul

Change had come over him without his knowing. There had been no precise point at which the city had lost its romance and promise, no point at which he had begun to consider himself old, his career closed, and his visions of the future became only visions of Anand's future. Each realization had been delayed and had come, not as a surprise, but as a statement of a condition long accepted.

"They say that men should look at the mother of the girl they intend to marry," Yvette said. "Girls who did what I did should consider the wife a man has discarded or worn out, and know thye are not going to do much better."

Non-fiction can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies.