Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up..

I find it extraordinary that a straightforward if inelegant device for ensuring the survival of the species should involve human beings in such emoti….

I thought of inviting you to my other club but you know how it is. Lunching there is a useful way of reminding people that you're still alive, but th….

You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?.

gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give..

He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is." Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal trage….

It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where….

The world is full of people who have lost faith: politicians who have lost faith in politics, social workers who have lost faith in social work, scho….

If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudic….

If our sex life were determined by our first youthful experiments, most of the world would be doomed to celibacy. In no area of human experience are ….

People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?.

We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends..

There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment..

Time didn't heal, but it anesthetized. The human mind could only feel so much..

A regime which combines perpetual surveillance with total indulgence is hardly conducive to healthy development..

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent lif….

In 1930s mysteries, all sorts of motives were credible which aren't credible today, especially motives of preventing guilty sexual secrets from comin….

however long we have to live, there are never enough springs..

Death ... obliterates family resemblance as it does personality: there is no affinity between the living and the dead..

We live in a society which salves its conscience more by helping the interestingly unfortunate than the dull deserving..

The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting..