Death had won my three friends; Death had almost won me. But now I was the one who was going to win and I was going to win by outwitting Death over a… - Susan Howatch

I deserve to be thought a coward. I am a coward. I'm just so bloody afraid of dying — of losing —

Barbarity's everywhere, that's the truth of it. Absolutely anyone is capable of absolutely anything.
My dear Papa, I had no idea you were such a cynic!
That's not cynicism, that's honesty — as you well know, dealing with criminals as you do, seeing the human race continually at its worst.

Romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied, it anaesthesises them from the pain of their disordered second-rate lives [...] If romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied then surely nostalgia is the opiate of the disillusioned, for those who see all their dreams come true and find themselves living in a nightmare.