Paul Bowles

“No one can ever heap enough insults upon me to suit my taste. I think we all really thrive on hostility, because it's the most intense kind of massage the ego can undergo. Other people's indifference is the only horror.”

“Many days later another caravan was passing and a man saw something on top of the highest dune there. And when they went up to see, they found Outka, Mimouna and Aicha; they were still there, lying the same way as when they had gone to sleep. And all three of the glasses... were full of sand. That was how they had their tea in the Sahara.”

“For in order to avoid having to deal with relative values, he had long since come to deny all purpose to the phenomenon of existence — it was more expedient and comforting.”

“A black star appears, a point of darkness in the night sky's clarity. Point of darkness and gateway to repose. Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.”

“Africa was a big place and would offer its own suggestions”

“For God's sake, sit down. You look like a Calvinist rector telling his flock about Hell.”

“Dr Slade went in to lunch in a state of desperate boredom tempered with resentment; it had shaken him a little to see how bad luck could be prolonged to such unlikely lengths.”

“Every second, ten stars set behind the black water in the west.”

“Because neither she nor Port had ever lived a life of any kind of regularity, they had both made the fatal error of coming hazily to regard time as non-existent. One year was like another year. Eventually everything would happen.”