Quotes from Nicholas Blake

Poor devil! None of us can have the remotest idea of the agony it is to be despised and rejected of men. A cancer in the soul and then madness. The feeling of there being a curtain, more invisible than gauze, stronger than iron, between one's self and one's fellow man. To cry out of the abyss and to know that there will be no answer, that one is buried alive.

Knott-Sloman was looking displeased. He had not liked Starling's breaking into his anecdote, nor the perfunctory nod with which the little don acknowledged their introduction. Nigel was conscious of an immediate antipathy between the two— the antipathy, perhaps, between the conversationalist, who lives by give-and-take, and the man who must have monologue or nothing.

This room was a veritable jungle of heirlooms, and an admirable setting for Lady Marlinworth, who, in spite of her age, had lost none of her agility in climbing up and down family trees.

For the price of a few battleships, we could give you a healthy nation. We have the knowledge, the skill, the material resources; but those in power prefer to use them for destroying their competitors and safeguarding their own profits.

Major Keston is a man with a grudge and considerable organizing talent. As you know, he was politely sacked from the Indian Police. He's just the kind of material the big people in this movement can use. Don't underestimate him and his like. They're probably quite sincere. Nothing easier than to turn a personal grievance the other way up and see it as patriotism.

My studies in criminology have suggested to me that only generals, Harley Street specialists and mine owners can get away with murder successfully.

A question of proof. That's a good title for a detective story, if you ever write one.

Each man's morality, thought Georgia, is a compromise between the strength of his character and the strength of his environment. Where you have no character to fix the ratio, you get the genius and the lunatic, to whom morality is meaningless.