Deptford Trilogy

"Despite these afternoon misgivings and self-reproaches I clung to my notion, ill-defined though it was, that a serious study of any important body of human knowledge, or theory, or belief, if undertaken with a critical but not a cruel mind, would in the end yield some secret, some valuable permanent insight, into the nature of life and the true end of man."

"And because she died during the war, when my father was abroad, the funeral had to be arranged by a family friend, and he just bought one grave. A good one, but single. She lies in the same desirable area as my father, but not near. As in life."

"Psychology plays a great part in my profession. I am rather a well-known criminal lawyer -- or have you checked that, too? I have to know something about the way people function. Without a pretty shrewd psychological sense I couldnt do what I do, which is to worm things out of people they dont want to tell. Thats your job, too, isnt it." "No. My job is to listen to people say things they very badly want to tell but are afraid nobody else will understand. You use psychology as an offensive weapon in the interest of justice. I use it as a cure. So keen a lawyer as yourself will appreciate the difference."

"Denyse had heard somewhere of a coffin being covered with a blanket of roses, and she wanted one as her own special offering. It was Caroline who persuaded her to hold herself down to a decent bunch of white flowers. Or really, persuaded isnt the word."

"I know what a heavy burden everybody carries of the unconfessed, which sometimes appears to be unspeakable. Very often such stuff is not disgraceful or criminal; it is merely a sense of not having behaved well or having done something one knew to be contrary to someone elses good; of having snatched when one should have waited decently; of having turned a sharp corner when someone else was thereby left in a difficult situation; of having talked of the first-rate when was planning to do the second-rate; of having fallen below whatever standards one had set oneself."

"There are lots of Christians who are all pity and charity for the miserable and the outcast, but who think it a spiritual duty to give the rich a good snubbing whenever they can."

"The Devils attributes have been left vague. I think Ive found one of them. It is he who puts the prices on things."

"Be sure you choose what you believe and know why you believe it, because if you dont choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very creditable one, will choose you."

"Did you ever think that these three men [ Freud, Adler and Jung] who were so splendid at understanding others had first to understand themselves? It was from their self-knowledge they spoke. They did not go trustingly to some doctor and follow his lead because they were too lazy or too scared to make the inward journey alone. They dared heroically...Was their heroism simply meant to raise a whole new crop of invalids?"

"He was funny, or ironic, or whatever you want to call it, about the World of Wonders. We all know why people talk in that way; if we are amusing about our trials in the past, it is as if we say, "See what I overcame - now I treat it as a joke - see how strong I have been and ask yourself if you could have overcome what I overcame?"

"Unhappiness of the kind that is recognized and examined and brooded over is a spiritual luxury."

"He let me know that he had been led into his marriage by love, and love alone; though he did not say so it was clear he owed Cupid a grudge."