Date: 1992

"Tightening his fists and concentrating until his concentration was like a telephone wire stretched between them, Patrick disappeared into the lizard's body."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"When Victor sat down again he pictured himself thinking, and tried to superimpose this picture on his inner vacancy."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Patrick knew he was not visible from the top of the stairs, but when he heard the footsteps pause he had tried to push back the idea of his father with concentration like a flamethrower. "

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"His thoughts, anticipating themselves hopelessly, stuttered in the starting blocks, and brought his feeling of fluency dangerously close to silence."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Only behind a waterfall of brutal and pleasurable sensations, thought Patrick, accepting the leather-clad menu without bothering to glance up, could he hide from the bloodhounds of his conscience. . There, in the cool recess of the rock, behind that heavy white veil, he would hear them yelping a...

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"It was hard enough to rescue himself from the avalanche of his own feelings, without allowing the gloomy St Bernard of his attention to wander into other fields."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Or--he must stop thinking about it--or [his consciousness seemed] like a solution of saturated copper sulphate under the microscope, when it suddenly transforms and crystals break out everywhere on its surface."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull, and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favourite cushion."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

" He was dangerously obsessed, dangerously obsessed. And his thoughts, like a bobsleigh walled with ice, would not change their course until he had crashed or achieved his end."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1993

"Your mind, I tell graduates, is a lot like a parachute--it won't help you much if it doesn't open when you need it."

— Crowe, William J. (1925-2007)