Quotes from Susan Howatch

They say that even now, despite all the reform, it's only a question of knowing the right people and having a bit of money to spend on the election.

Everything's absolutely fine really—except that sometimes I think I can't go on any more

was generally agreed that Mildred had managed a déclassé

In my opinion Christ had been a good Jew, not "liberal" in the modern sense of extending a credo to its outer limits in the name of freedom, but "radical" in the original sense of cutting back the credo to its roots to rediscover its true spirit.

The trouble was that I could not now think of my marriage without being assaulted by a wave of  unbearable emotions which I felt quite unable to handle. Rage that Kim should have been deceiving me on such a huge scale, coupled with horror at his disastrous involvement with Mrs. Mayfield, were followed by grief that my love had apparently been a grand illusion, coupled with a violent, unforgiving self-disgust that I should have made such a devastating mess of my personal life …

Nobody suggested that it was my moral duty to visit my husband. Nobody talked about my moral responsibilities as a wife. But Val kept in touch with the doctors at the hospital, Nicholas kept in touch with the senior chaplain there, and now Lewis was talking of keeping in touch with Kim himself. The more I tried to escape from the reality of my shattered marriage, the more my new companions seemed to be quietly drawing my attention back to the husband I was unable to confront.

I think you'd agree that as far as marriage is concerned, there are two types of churchmen. One set feels that marriage distracts them from serving God as well as they can, and the other set feels that as single men they can't serve God properly because they're continually distracted by loneliness and by wondering (as the naval ratings would say) where the next fuck was coming from.

I must say, he sounds on very familiar terms with God, but then one never quite knows with laymen whether that indicates arrogance, reverence or ignorance.

It's dangerous to make a judgement when one can't know all the facts," pursued Darrow, "and since only God can know all the facts, one can only conclude that it's best to leave the judgements to God.

I thought you might want to try me out." "What for? We hardly need premarital sex to tell us that at first the physical side of marriage is going to be difficult! What matters is not that we confirm this obvious fact before marriage but that after the wedding we're prepared to try hard to overcome the problem.

No race on earth is as clever at being strangers as the British. They wrap themselves in formality, they withdraw behind veil after veil of exquisite politeness, they hide cunningly behind a bewildering array of carefully chosen façades—

In your distress you're making so much noise that you wouldn't hear a communication from God even if He were transformed into an anthropomorphic deity who could thunder instructions to you in impeccable BBC English. The way forward at this moment, I assure you, is not to thrash around making a noise. What you have to do is to listen—to listen to the silence and be calm.

Ginevra," said my uncle, all despair at once annihilated by his rage, "I swear to you I shall never, never, NEVER, so long as I live, go back to that woman!" He went back to her six months later.

I'd rather be a first-rate failure than a second-rate success.

We know so little," she said, "about even those who are closest to us. We know so little of what really goes on in other people's lives.

Boredom on social occasions is an inescapable hazard for the over-educated.

before he died Francis' father had ordered that the gutters and gargoyles be painted gold, and the innovation had enabled the house to achieve a new and unbelievable pitch of vulgarity. I am incapable of further description; all I can add is that Greek ideas had married Gothic affectations in the architectural plans, and the marriage had not been a happy one.

Marrying for love might be romantic but I considered it the hallmark of an undisciplined private life. Romance is the opiate of the dissatisfied; it anesthetizes them from the pain of their disordered second-rate lives.

Personally I can think of nothing more terrifying than to live in a land where law and order have no meaning and violence is the rule of the day.

In fact the great truth of life is that the things most people think are important aren't really important at all.

It doesn't do to be sentimental about cats; the best ones don't respect you for it.

One wonders what would happen in a society in which there were no rules to break. Doubtless everyone would quickly die of boredom.

lonely, very lonely to have a past no one else can share.

Its really most remarkable how the human race is so seldom satisfied with what its got. Give a man the world and he's pining for the moon.