“People never remember happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.”Edward St. Aubyn
“There could be no negotiation between people who thought that cocaine was a vaguely naughty and salacious drug and the intravenous addict who know that it was an opportunity to experience the arctic landscape of pure terror.”Edward St. Aubyn Bad News, Chapter 4
“Aren’t people funny? I don’t find where one sits at dinner fascinating at all,’ lied the Princess.”Edward St. Aubyn Some Hope, Chapter 8
“Thank goodness there were people who were happy with nothing, thought Julia, so that people like her (and everyone else she had ever met), could have more.”Edward St. Aubyn At Last, Chapter 7
“The idea that an afterlife had been invented to reassure people who couldn’t face the finality of death was no more plausible than the idea that the finality of death had been invented to reassure people who couldn’t face the nightmare of endless experience.”Edward St. Aubyn At Last, Chapter 3
“Of course it was wrong to want to change people, but what else could you possibly want to do with them?”Edward St. Aubyn Bad News, Chapter 12
“When she told people how nervous she was about any kind of public appearance, they said incredibly annoying things like, ‘Don’t forget to breathe.’ Now she knew why.”Edward St. Aubyn At Last, Chapter 8
“Mind you, I don’t know why people get so fixated on happiness, which always eludes them, when there are so many other invigorating experiences available, like rage, jealousy, disgust, and so forth.”Edward St. Aubyn Some Hope, Chapter 7