Quotes from Unsworth, Barry

And I wondered if these people too, who seemed able to move as they wished about the yard, were in truth constrained to behave as they did and were only pretending to be free, as we ourselves had done when we came in procession through the town.

Afterward I remembered these things very clearly, with that longing we feel sometimes to recover a state of life that we have lost for ever, though perhaps that we have lost it is all its value.

Now he was passing from the playing space with no role left to play but this last one of dying, that comes to all.

And as my eyes grew heavy with sleep I wondered if there were not some larger play still, in which Kings and Emperors and Popes, though thinking they are in the center of the space, are really only in the margin...

Empires never do feel the touch of mortality. . .You might have individuals who see the writing on the wall, but the imperial power as such doesn't seem able to read the signs, it hangs on for dear life and always ends in a bloody mess.