Quotes from book

The Angel's Game

“Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, skepticism flies out the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends, myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of beliefs, values, and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society.”

“I quarreled with every word, every phrase and expression, every image and letter as if they were the last I was ever going to write. I wrote and rewrote every line as if my life depended on it, and then rewrote it again.”

“A man must have vices, expensive ones if possible. Otherwise when he reaches old age he will have nothing to be redeemed from.”

“Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it in the most pompous and pedantic way possible?… Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?”

“Martin, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows' necks.”

“Everything in life in nonsense. It's just a question of persepctive”

“Do you think it's dirty money?
-All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it.”

“I tried to swallow his nonsense without choking.”

“I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend -- if possible, a deaf one.”

“I prefer you like this, when you're in a foul mood, because you tell the truth.”

“One is never wholly conscious of the greed hidden in one's heart until one hears the sweet sound of silver.”

“Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, one can confuse compassion with love.”

“I can't die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I'll have a whole lifetime in which to die.”

“This cures everything except stupidity, which is an epidemic on the rise.”

“It's only worth staying in bed if you're young and in good company.”

“Whether we realise it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favouring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act.”

“It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality.”

“There was no more good or evil in this world than we imagine there to be, either out of greed or out of innocence. Or sometimes madness.”