Sublime

“I sometimes think I safeguard your opinion of him. Is that possible? That I somehow keep the two of you together. Is that possible?” “It’s possible.” He added, “Yes, I suppose I’m dependent on him, too, in a way.”

She thought of him as a source of knowledge rather than experience; a good, though not contemporary mind, a person rather than a man.

Father Quixote found that he was in a lavatory. In the mirror by the washbasin he could see that his captor was fumbling at the latch of his brief-case. To take out a gun? Was he to be shot in the back of the neck? Hastily, too hastily, he began an Act of Contrition under his breath: ‘Oh God, I am sorry and beg pardon for all my fish …’

peremptory

‘A few million dead and Communism is established over nearly half the world. A small price. One loses more in any war.’ ‘A few hundred dead and Spain remains a Catholic country. An even smaller price.’ ‘So Franco succeeds Torquemada.’ ‘And Brezhnev succeeds Stalin.’ ‘Well, father, we can at least agree with this: that small men seem always to succe

‘After all that good wine,’ Father Quixote said, ‘we shall sleep well wherever we are.’ ‘I shan’t sleep a wink.’ ‘She is one of your people.’ ‘What on earth do you mean?’ ‘The poor.’ He added quickly, ‘Of course they are my people too.’