Date: 1992

"That terror was the price he had to pay for the first heartbreaking wave of pleasure when consciousness seemed to burst out, like white blossoms, along the branches of every nerve."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"And all his scattered thoughts came rushing together, like loose iron filings as a magnet is held over them and draws them into the shape of a rose."

— 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

"Every thought or hint of a thought took on a personality stronger than his own."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"The rotten floorboards of his thoughts gave way one after another until the ground itself seemed no fitter than sodden paper to catch his fall."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Other people's words drifted through his mind. Tumbleweed riding through a desert. Had he already thought that?"

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Traces of the night's possession surfaced now and again in the slowly simmering scum of his thoughts, and the experience of being so thoroughly and often displaced left him bruised and lonely."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Patrick sprang up the steps of the Key Club with unaccustomed eagerness, his nerves squirming like a bed of maggots whose protective stone has been flicked aside, exposing them to the assault of the open sky."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Nancy wondered, in her husky inner voice which, even in the deepest intimacy of her own thoughts, was turned to address a large and fascinated audience."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)