Pure

First ambitions are best. We are less brave later.

The poverty of the villages is almost picturesque from the windows of a coach that is not stopping.

Like everyone else in the house, she suffers from dreams.

She knows about men, knows a good deal of the world's character. But it is hard, whatever you have endured, to give up on love. Hard to stop thinking of it as a home you might one day find again. More than hard.

The visit, like all visits home for a long time now, has been an obscure failure. When is it we cease to be able to go back, truly go back? What secret door is it that closes?

Why are there no handsome priest in Paris? One has no inclination to confess anything to an ugly man.

I’m going to play,’ says Armand, lacing his fingers and cracking the knuckles. ‘A pair of these lads can pump for me.’ ‘Is this a time for playing?’ asks Jean Baptiste. Then, ‘You are right. You have never been more so.

Could he not go to hospital?' asks Jean-Baptiste. The doctor flares his nostrils. 'Hospitals are very dangerous places. Particularly to one already weakened by illness.