Quotes from Simon Mawer

Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.

If God resides anywhere ... surely he shelters behind barricades of pure chance.

You can tell nothing from a man's appearance, nothing except the depths of your own prejudice.

She knows what it is to be sad and miserable, but those emotions are almost enjoyable. They throw moments of happiness and laughter into sharper relief.

It is perfectly possible to believe two contradictory things at one and the same time - that is one of the brilliant faculties of the human mind.

It is difficult to reconstruct an emotion. At times it is difficult even to admit to one. I have practiced long and hard at denying entry to such twin imposters as triumph and disaster, or love and hate, but sometimes the barriers are breached.

The shutter of the photographer's camera makes that repeated mechanical sound. That unlocking and locking of the doors of light to send momentary images of the present into the light trap of the past.

Numbers have no hidden meanings, you say. But it is the hidden meanings in words that make them so wonderful.

Reality is brutal or painful or frightening, but waiting is a distillate of fear that corrodes and dissolves.

Regulations. The city, the country, probably the whole world (having travelled little, TomáÅ¡ is unsure about the matter) is pinned down by regulations. His own view is that regulations are designed to control the future and if we all live in an eternal present then regulations are, by definition, powerless.

in Czech we have an expression, propadnout lásce, to fall in love. You can't do that in German, can you? In German you just come into love. But in Czech you can fall into it.

A work of art like this,' he tells one of the journalists, 'demands that the life lived in it be a work of art as well. I am certain that Viktor Landauer and his beautiful wife will do the place justice.

The Slavs aren't unintelligent of course, just emotionally unstable, liable to great heights and great depths. That is what science tells one. Look at Tchaikovsky. Look at Dostoyevsky.

I'm fond of her. Oh yeah? Fond are you? I've heard of fond. I expect old erection here - she pointed to the tube of DNA - was fond of his victim. Fond is a prude's word, Ben. You fancy her. That's what you say. You fancy Miss Library something painful. And who knows? She grinned, gap-toothed, like the Wife of Bath. Maybe she fancies you.

It wasn't the way that Viktor and Katalin looked at each other, it was the way they didn't look. It wasn't the notes, it was the silences between the notes.

PÃ…â"¢átelství už jsou taková - kÃ…â"¢ehké konstrukce, které vydrží nápor bouÃ…â"¢e, a pÃ…â"¢esto se mohou rozpadnout na tisíc kousk? bez konkrétního d?vodu. KÃ…â"¢ehké jako bÃ…â"¢idlice.

Problém se slovy spo?ívá v tom, že stahují myÅ¡lenky k zemi, pÃ…â"¢ibíjejí je na kÃ…â"¢íž pÃ…â"¢esných význam?. Ale život není o pÃ…â"¢esných významech, spíÅ¡e o jejich odstínech, o náznacích, verzích a rozporech, o propojení lásky a nenávisti, vypo?ítavosti a touhy.

Strach je užite?ný," vysvÄ›tlil jí kdysi její psychiatr. "Strach posiluje naÅ¡e obranné reflexy. Ale panika je k ni?emu.

Scotland's all heather and haggis and men in skirts.

Sitting there on the bus as it crossed the river and traipsed out through the dreary purlieus of Kennington, the giggling turned to laughter.

You don't have to be guilty of anything in order to feel guilt

I don't believe you.' 'That doesn't make any difference. Whether you believe it or not doesn't change the facts. It doesn't depend on belief.

How do you recruit an agent? The three Vs - vzyatochnichestvo, vymogatel'stvo, vera. It works just as well in English: bribery, blackmail, belief.