He became a solitary, belonging to that tragic class of active men prematurely deprived of activity; swimmers barred from the water or actors banishe… - John le Carré

And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackens, that his life had consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order, and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it.

Sometimes she thought Alec was right—you believed in things because you needed to; what you believed in had no value of its own, no function.

It was his shoes, he noticed to his pleasure, that she most objected to; and he thought: bloody good, that's what shoes are for.