Quotes from book
The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune
Susan Howatch

The Wheel of Fortune is a novel by Susan Howatch and recounts the trials and tribulations of a fictitious British family, the Godwins, who appear to be part of the minor aristocracy.

“More tears. Disgraceful. I was getting just like Kester, weeping at the drop of a hat, but of course I was Kester. I'd become him, and now there was just this other stranger who wrote me debonair notes and who sounded just like me.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 5: Harry

“Recovering from an ill-starred romance is, after all, to anyone of sufficient will-power and self-respect, purely an attitude of mind.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“He wasn't just being selfish, he was being realistic. Marriage would have been very difficult if not downright impossible.'
'Marriage is always very difficult if not downright impossible,' said my father.
'Oh Harry, for God's sake forget I mentioned the group therapy! Run off and listen to a string quartet!”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

“True doppelgä ngers should never meet face-to-face, you know.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 5: Harry

“But never mind, all the best heroines are beautiful orphans, abandoned to their fate, and the one thing that's certain about my situation is that I'm going to be a heroine when I grow up.'
'Can I be a hero?'
'Well, I suppose you can try. But you'll have to try very hard.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“… we have to be kind, we have to be charitable and we can't condemn people just because they get in a mess…even the best people can get into ghastly messes,…we must never judge other people too harshly because although they can make awful mistakes they can still be very nice people.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 4: Kester

“To be distracted is pardonable. To be incoherent is simply unobliging.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“There are standards of immorality as well as standards of morality, Robert. Make sure yours are high.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“Barbarity's everywhere, that's the truth of it. Absolutely anyone is capable of absolutely anything.'
'My dear Papa, I had no idea you were such a cynic!'
'That's not cynicism, that's honesty — as you well know, dealing with criminals as you do, seeing the human race continually at its worst.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“The one advantage of being childless is that one can choose one's children and so avoid the bizarre game of chance in which one passes one's best — or one's worst — genes to one's poor innocent offspring.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

“What a bloody jungle income tax is! It's a wonder we don't all go on strike and refuse to pay.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 5: Harry

“Kester wrote about people and since human nature doesn't change his observations hadn't dated.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

“I could always walk out on a husband. But I could never turn my back on a friend.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 2: Ginevra

“Little girls don't stay playmates. Little girls become big girls and big girls become sweethearts.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“Life's for living, not for mourning … Live in the present, not the past.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

“Christ, all you psychiatrists think about is sex — sex, sex, sex, sex, sex …”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

“One must be rational about such matters and being rational need not mean being cold.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“Man cannot live on charm alone, and an ambitious man cannot live on anything less than wealth, good social connections and substantial political influence.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“Death had won my three friends; Death had almost won me. But now I was the one who was going to win and I was going to win by outwitting Death over and over again … To compete with Death, as I had discovered in the mountains, was to know one was alive.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

“The English don't have opinions about the Irish. They have prejudices.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

Similar authors

Susan Howatch photo
Susan Howatch36
British writer 1940
A.A. Milne photo
A.A. Milne169
British author None
Doris Lessing photo
Doris Lessing94
British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer … None
V.S. Naipaul photo
V.S. Naipaul34
Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry None
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Arthur C. Clarke207
British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… None
W. Somerset Maugham photo
W. Somerset Maugham158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer None
Elias Canetti photo
Elias Canetti43
Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist,… None
William Golding photo
William Golding79
British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Lite… None
Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Kazuo Ishiguro76
Japanese-born British author None
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien78
British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy … None