Brian Moore

“The silent majority distrusts people who believe in causes.”

“As always on this boulevard, the faces were young, coming annually in an endless migration from every country, every continent, to alight here once in the long journey of their lives.”

“And the bell jangled, the driver started. The bus whirled off, to the last stop, the lonely room, the lonely night.”

“After a goalless first half, the score at half time is 0-0.”

“There comes a point in many people's lives when they can no longer play the role they have chosen for themselves. When that happens, we are like actors finding that someone has changed the play.”

“What could he be thinking of? He seemed to be trying to remember something, perhaps an engagement, perhaps an excuse to leave her. For eventually, they all made some excuse.”

“When you're a writer you no longer see things with the freshness of the normal person. There are always two figures that work inside you.”

“The world's made up of individuals who don't want to be heroes.”

“And now we have the formalities over, we'll have the National Anthems.”

“If misery loves company, then triumph demands an audience.”

“Don't you know that love isn't just going to bed? Love isn't an act, it's a whole life. It's staying with her now because she needs you; it's knowing you and she will still care about each other when sex and daydreams, fights and futures -- when all that's on the shelf and done with. Love -- why, I'll tell you what love is: it's you at seventy-five and her at seventy-one, each of you listening for the other's step in the next room, each afraid that a sudden silence, a sudden cry, could mean a lifetime's talk is over.”