You know what you do? You know how rain takes the colour out of everything? That's what you do to the English language. You blur it every time you op… - John Fowles

I had always believed, and not only out of cynicism, that a man and a woman could tell in the first ten minutes whether they wanted to go to bed together; and that the time that passed after those first ten minutes represented a tax, which might be worth paying if the article promised to be really enjoyable, but which nine times out of ten became rapidly excessive.

In spite of her superficial independence, her fundamental need was to cling.
All her life was an attempt to disprove it; and so proved it. She was like a sea anemone — had only to be touched once to adhere to what touched her.

I knew I would always want to go on living with myself, however hollow I became, however diseased.