Quotes from Campbell Armstrong

Enthusiasm's as slippery as a bar of soap in a bathtub,' Lou said. 'Now you have it, now you don't.

He sat in his father's cracked brown leather swivel chair. The Judge used to sit here night after night, law books open before him, and his big fountain pen in his hand. He scribbled notes in yellow legal pads.

life went rushing past and it preoccupied you, and suddenly you realized you were never going to read War and Peace or sit drinking blood-orange juice at a sidewalk cafe in Florence or sail the Greek islands for a month.

paperback novel of the escapist kind, SAS action stuff where men were men and women mattresses.

but sometimes a mystery opens up like a night flower.

His hand's about as steady as a live toad in aspic

Men dream of the unattainable, and sometimes even achieve it. But the house odds were always stacked against visionaries.

Lou Perlman dreamed he was on the threshold of a thrilling new life, even as he understood he was travelling steerage on the same old battered boat of wishful thinking.

Where was she now? in a middle-aged marriage? did she live in this city still? He had a sudden urge to see her, as if he might retrieve by looking at her the ferocious sensation of that kiss, that moment –

Too baaaad.' The Pickler farted, a genuine ripper. 'Sorry, Mr Perlman. That was a cheeky wee sneaker. Canny catch they softees.' A cheeky wee sneaker? Christ, it was practically a whole wind ensemble. Perlman worried about damage to the fabric of the chair. The