Of course it was wrong to want to change people, but what else could you possibly want to do with them? - Edward St Aubyn

The idea that an afterlife had been invented to reassure people who couldn’t face the finality of death was no more plausible than the idea that the finality of death had been invented to reassure people who couldn’t face the nightmare of endless experience.

The claim that every man kills the thing he loves seemed to him a wild guess compared with the near certainty of a man turning into the thing he hates.

But do you know what struck me, apart from Nancy’s vibrant self-pity, which she had the nerve to pretend was grief?