Quotes from Edward St. Aubyn

He was perfect in his way,' said Patrick.

David listened to the swishing sound his yellow slippers made as he walked up the last flight of steps to the door that led from the terrace into the drawing room. Yvette had not yet opened the curtains, which saved him the trouble of closing them again. He liked the drawing room to look dim and valuable.

Eleanor had watched her mother's persecution with the same vivid silence as she experienced in the face of her own gradual disintegration tonight.

Sometimes, when he was alone, he sat in the Doge's chair, as it was always called, leaning forward on the edge of the seat, his right hand clasping one of the intricately carved arms, striking a pose he remembered from the Illustrated History of England he had been given at prep school. The picture portrayed Henry V's superb anger when he was sent a present of tennis balls by the insolent King of France.

As he poured himself a drink, David thought about his dead father-in-law, Dudley Craig, a charming, drunken Scotsman who had been dismissed by Eleanor's mother, Mary, when he became too expensive to keep.

He often stared at the bare outcrops of lacerated limestone. They looked to him like models of human brains dumped on the dark green mountainside, or at other times, like a single brain, bursting from dozens of incisions. He sat on the sofa beside the window and looked out, trying to work up a primitive sense of awe.

Béarnaise? With lamb?' said Anne. 'Of course. The dish which left the poor Duc de Guermantes so famished that he had no time to chat with the dying Swann's dubious daughter before hurrying off to dinner.

He thought of one of the guiding mottoes of his father's life: 'Never apologize, never explain.

Earl, who seemed to be in an almost perpetual state of amazement at the things he said, shook his head again.

Only in a country free from the funnelling of primogeniture and the levelling of égalité could the fifth generation of a family still be receiving parcels of wealth from a fortune that had essentially been made in the 1830s.

If the Watson-Scotts were just a little too obscure, at least everyone was agreed that Bridget was flavour of the month and he was a lucky dog to have her.

The trouble with not being a psychopath. Every avenue was blocked.

Life imitating bad literary criticism. Dis/inte/gration.

Maybe they are intended to be images about emptiness,' said the man solemnly. 'I think that's something the kids are very much in touch with right now.' 'How can you be in touch with emptiness?' asked Patrick.

Why was the centre of his desire always in a place he had just deserted?

One seldom knows whether perseverance is noble or stupid until it's too late.

politicians seemed to be recruited exclusively from the locked wards of psychiatric hospitals

It was a profession that seemed to fuse compassion and brutality, without having to reveal which was the dominant impulse, as long as both were accompanied by a high degree of precision.

Good morning. Is the sun a little brighter, there is Friendship? Is the air a little fresher? Is your home a little sweeter? Is your housework somewhat easier? Are the children- do you feel safer about them? Are their faces a little ruddier; are their legs a little sturdier? Do they laugh and play a lot louder in Friendship? Then I am content.

There was definitely an argument for getting some sleep; namely, that when he woke up the impact of the drugs would be stronger.

I like heroin, cocaine, nice houses. good furniture, and pretty girls,' said Alexander, 'and I've had all of them in large quantities. 'But you know, they never made me happy.' 'My word, you're hard to please, aren't you?

I know' said Patrick. 'It was a terrible shock to me when I realized I was getting too old to die young anymore.

promising, like a silver flute lying on a page of music.

Bridget carried cups of tea over to the two men, and as she turned to fetch her own cup, David held the burning tip of his cigar close to the ants and ran it along in both directions as far as he could conveniently reach. The ants twisted, excruciated by the heat, and dropped down onto the terrace. Some, before they fell, reared up, their stitching legs trying helplessly to repair their ruined bodies. 'What a civilized life you have here,' Bridget sang out as