"Soldiers home on leave had to be given an good time; they mustn't be allowed to remember what they were going back to, and this gave everybody else a magnificent excuse for never thinking about it at all" (Chapter 1, pg. 6.)

"There were times - and tonight was one of them - when Prior was made physically sick by the sight and sound and smell of civilians" (Chapter 1, pg. 7.)

"A sad smell came from the closet: lavender and sweat, a sad smell. Prior's mother had started her life in service in just such a house as this" (Chapter 1, pg. 12.)

"Everything - the chipped green paint, the scuffed no-color floor, the nailed-down chairs - implied that those who visited criminals were probably criminals themselves" (Chapter 3, pg. 27.)

"[Lionel Spragge] was as unmistakably and crudely potent as a goat" (Chapter 4, pg. 46.)

"It would be very easy, under the pretext of 'even-handedness' to...