Alfred Hayes (writer)

“Did she know what it was for a man to come to that point in his life when he found it impossible to touch the body of his own wife? To look at it; and to feel nothing. Not to desire it, at all, when the flesh was inert and dead and meaningless? To have the act of love become (with one's own wife) the most meaningless of all acts?”

“There was a noisy rush of water from the bathroom, and she appeared, ready for the evening, a smile she had chosen, I thought, from a small collection of smiles she kept for occasions like this, fixed upon her face.”