We all die alone. We shall endure death as once we enjoyed birth. You can't share either experience. - P. D. James

I don't see why escapist literature should not also be a work of art.

The street and the houses had a perfection which was almost intimidating. No weed, thought Kate, would surely dare to push its unsanctified tendrils through these carefully tended small lawns and flower beds.

How fragile was that elegant, complicated bridge of order and reason which the law had constructed down the centuries over the abyss of social and psychological chaos.