Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. - Margaret Atwood

She said love was useless, because it led you into dumb exchanges in which you gave too much away, and then you got bitter and mean.

I’m just as human as you. But it’s no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. And the temporary oblivion of sex.