[I]t's human to choose any sort of path into the future rather than face the long road back to what you've left behind. - Kingsley Amis

[W]e're all trapped in a sort of conspiracy to pretend everybody's forgiven everybody else and nobody minds anything any more and we all know life's not like that but what can we do?

As far back as she could remember, she had gone in for day-dreams about what clothes, jewellery and the like she would wear if, like her admired and adored Marie Antoinette, she were somehow to find herself facing public execution.

'You're still the same girl. What people do doesn't change their nature.'
She shook her head.[…] 'What they do is their nature,' she said.