“So he was always in the town at one place or another, drinking, knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him. He talked to barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark, strained look in his eyes, as if he were hunting something.Everything seemed so different, so unreal. There seemed no reason why people should go along the street, and houses pile up in the daylight. There seemed no reason why these things should occupy the space, instead of leaving it empty. His friends talked to him: he heard the sounds, and he answered. But why there should be the noise of speech he could not understand.”

English novelist, poet, and painter

David Herbert Lawrence was an English writer, critic, and painter, active in the early 20th century. He wrote novels, stories, poems, plays, essays, and travel writing, and is best known for his modernist fiction. His work looks closely at modern life, industrial society, and the strain of social alienation, while also giving strong place to sexuality, vitality, and instinct. Four of his best-known novels, Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover, became the subject of censorship trials because of their frank treatment of romance, sexuality, and language.