Nice paragraphs

The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.

You shall not go down twice to the same river, nor can you go home again. That he knew; indeed it was the basis of his view of the world. Yet from that acceptance of transience he evolved his vast theory, wherein what his most changeable is shown to be the fullest of eternity, and your relationship to the river, and the rivers relationship to you

Some people know they are condemned; some have time to pray, and others die struggling and screaming, fighting to their last breath. An irate killer stamps in to the tribunal – 'Use your heads, give us a bloody chance, can't you? We can't keep up.' So the prisoners are waved away airily by their judges – 'Go, you're free.' Outside the door a steady

In this death house, drawers and chests exhaled a light flower scent. She had kept an inventory of the china, he found. Two days before her death, she'd dropped a cup. At Sèvres just now they were designed a new demitasse. As you sip your mocha you might admire the dripping head of Capet – scattering golden drops of blood, and held in Sanson's

Another love affair, then, in the intervals of blood-letting. One finds time, one finds time.

Thus Carnot, later to be known as the Organiser of Victory: Robespierre, the Organiser of Carnot.

'What are you looking so worried for?' Danton asked him.

'I'm worried about preserving this accord between you.' He made a small gesture, to show how he was preserving it; it seemed to be the size of a hen's egg, and as fragile.

He addressed himself to a third draft. How does one write to Danton? He took out his DANTON notebook and read it over. He was no wiser when he finished, but much more depressed.

He pulled Camille into this arms. His body seemed strange and precarious, made of shadows and angles.