He knew that loneliness was poisoning him, so that he grew viler as well as more unhappy. - E. M. Forster

And Englishmen like posing as gods.

"You care for me a little bit, I do think," he admitted, "but I can't hang all my life on a little bit. You don't. You hang yours on Anne. You don't worry whether your relation with her is platonic or not, you only know it's big enough to hang a life on."

But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.