Susan Howatch

"'Acquiring carnal knowledge is like swimming in the sea ... The sea's so beautiful to look at, so wonderful to swim in, but you must never bathe unless it's safe. People so often drown in the sea and …"

"But magic can't operate without a magician, and being a magician can beat a man to his knees."

"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 and over again ... To compete with Death, as I had d…"

"Redemption's just a word and as I'm not a Christian it means nothing to me."

"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…"

"More tears. Disgraceful. I was getting just like Kester, weeping at the drop of a hat, but of course I was Kester. I'd become him, and now there was just this other stranger who wrote me debonair note…"

"Recovering from an ill-starred romance is, after all, to anyone of sufficient will-power and self-respect, purely an attitude of mind."

"'Bloody men! sometimes I feel I hate them all.'"