Quotes from Edward St. Aubyn

But that's what the English mean, isn't it, when they say, He was very philosophical about it? They mean that someone stopped thinking about something.

She imagined vodka poured over ice and all the cubes that had been frosted turning clean and collapsing in the glass and the ice cracking, like a spine in the hands of a confident osteopath.

The past has all the time in the world. It's only the future which is running out.

A little Indian guy being sneered at by monsters of English privilege would normally have unleashed the full weight of Anne's loyalty to underdogs, but this time it was wiped out by Vijay's enormous desire to be a monster of English privilege himself.

He couldn't help wondering whether love could really consist of an unpleasant combination of obsession, self-pity, rivalry, lust and day-dreaming. These characteristics didn't seem to distinguish it from the rest of life, except by their intensity.

Ninety per cent of the drugs were for him and ten per cent for Natasha, a woman who remained an impenetrable mystery to him during the six months they lived together. The only thing he felt certain about was that she irritated him; but then, who didn't?

Balance was so elusive: either it was like this, too fast, or there was the heavy thing like wading through a swamp to get to the end of a sentence.

Just before the top of the hill she stopped, breathed deeply, and tried to muster her scattered sense of calm, like a bride checking her veil in the last mirror before the aisle.

There seemed to be no one in a position of power, from the Vatican to Wall Street, from Parliament to Scotland Yard to Fleet Street, who could think of anything better to do than abuse it....

Anne came downstairs wearing a white cotton dress almost indistinguishable from the white cotton nightgown she had taken off.

There's a blast of palpable stupidity that comes from our host, like opening the door of a sauna. The best way to contradict him is to let him speak.

An image flashed across her mind of two rams flinging their heads against each other on a rocky mountainside. What did the girl rams do? Faint with pleasure? Clap their cloven hooves? Lean against some nearby boulders, with little tubs of mountain grass, discussing the battle?

made him more conscious of how little experience he had of saying what he meant.

observe everything . . . ?trust nobody . . . ?despise your mother . . . ?effort is vulgar . . . ?things were better in the eighteenth century.

So much road and so few places, so much friendliness and so little intimacy, so much flavour and so little taste.

People think they are individuals because they use the word I so often, Patrick commented.

Is there ever anything to get unduly worried about,' Peter couldn't help asking, 'when there are so many things to worry about duly?

The Talking Heads pulsed from every speaker. 'The centre is missing,' gasped David Byrne, and Patrick could not help agreeing with him. How did they know exactly what he was feeling? It was spooky.

Why was he in this state? Or perhaps the question was why had he not always been in this state? Why had he not always found life so disturbing and so poignant?

They had never met, but she had come to understand what had driven Victor's wife to seek refuge in a full set of Snoopy mugs.

Unlike the riotous appetites of adolescence, his present cravings had a tragic tinge, they were cravings for the appetites, metacravings, wanting to want.

If they made a film of my inner life, it would be more than the public could take. Mothers would scream, Bring back The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so we can have some decent family entertainment!

Patrick's own nanny was dead. A friend of his mother's said she had gone to heaven, but Patrick had been there and knew perfectly well that they had put her in a wooden box and dropped her in a hole. Heaven was the other direction and so the woman was lying, unless it was like sending a parcel.

The past has all the time in the world. It's only the future which is running out.