There are only two races on this planet — the intelligent and the stupid. - John Fowles

He’s so slow, so unimaginative, so lifeless. Like zinc white. I see it’s a sort of tyranny he has over me. He forces me to be changeable, to act. To show off. The hateful tyranny of weak people.

He knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him, his imagination was always ready to fill the gap.

That's the trouble with provincial life. Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery. No romance.