"The internal time of the high-rise, like an artificial psychological climate, operated to its own rhythms, generated by a combination of alcohol and insomnia ... All the residents he had met, upon learning he was a physician, at some point brought up their difficulties in sleeping. At parties people discussed their insomnia in the same way they referred to the other built-in design flaws of the building. In the early hours of the morning the two thousand tenants subsided below a silent tide of Seconal."

"The spectacular view always made Laing aware of his ambivalent feelings for this concrete landscape. Part of its appeal lay all too clearly in the fact that this was an environment built, not for man, but for man's absence."

"... only in the darkness could one become sufficiently obsessive, deliberately play on all one's repressed instincts."

"Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months."

"At first Laing found something alienating about the concrete landscape of the project — an architecture designed for war, on the unconscious level if no other."

"Within half an hour almost all of the women were drunk, a yardstick Laing had long used to measure the success of a party."

"In a sense, these people were the vanguard of a well-to-do and well-educated proletariat of the future, boxed up in these expensive apartments with their elegant furniture and intelligent sensibilities, and no possibility of escape."

"The untruth of the accusation, which they all knew well, only served to reinforce it ... By the logic of the high-rise those most innocent of any offence became the most guilty."

"Without knowing it, [the architect] had constructed a giant vertical zoo. All the events of the past few months made sense if one realized that these brilliant and exotic creatures had learned how to open the doors."

"He is one of those men who, on marrying, assume that they have at last got a person to do a duty which has always hitherto been neglected."

"It seemed, indeed, to Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expression her abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing, why should she scream so loudly?"

"When once a woman is married she should be regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction."

"Mr. Browborough, whose life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life, repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now adopted — “The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.”"

"But he could stand up with unabashed brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times over — “The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.” Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only would he not have answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question."

"Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so."

"It is the necessary nature of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great change."

"“They’re giving £2 10s. a vote at the Fallgate this minute” said Ruddles to him at a quarter past three. “We shall have to prove it.” “We can do that, I think,” said Ruddles."

"I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that is the best thing a man can be, unless it is given him to be a saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing, — which is not just what a mother looks for."

"We all profess to believe when we’re told that this world should be used merely as a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for our children."

"He too, liked his party, and was fond of loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but that which Erie called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave without danger to himself."

"“But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?” “I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home,” said the lord. “They couldn’t well be heavier.”"

"The bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from the strength of his arguments."

"She rides to hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the Times."

"“I am sorry for that, — very sorry.” “Why so, Lord Chiltern?” “Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might have introduced him to ride a little less forward.”"

"Let a man be of what side he may in politics, — unless he be much more of a partisan than a patriot, — he will think it well that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal of crumbs of comfort."

"Then he would be penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again opened, and he knew, — no one better, — that this oyster becomes harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older."

"Of all hatreds that the world produces, a wife’s hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the strongest."

"I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We’ve nothing else to interest anybody."

"As for offending him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it."

"Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage."

"“Perhaps I had better tell you the truth, Mr. Gresham.” “Oh, certainly,” said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that on such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of disagreeable truths."

"People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better."

"He becomes strenuous, energetic, and perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth."

"“Isn‘t there some trouble about money?” “They wouldn‘t be very rich, Duchess.” “What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they‘d be very poor.” “They would be rather poor.” “Which is not a blessing.”"

"The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so."

"No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they were rich or poor, — married or single; but then they were first cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess."

"He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he know how to speak the truth."

"I never believe anything that a lawyer says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much the thousand. I know he‘ll say whatever he thinks most likely to forward his own views."

"The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood, — which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, nor more frequently disallowed where it prevails."

"I don't much admire your taste, my dear, because he‘s a hundred and fifty years old; — and what there is of him comes chiefly from the tailor."

"Your nature is decimals. I run after units."

"“Not in the least. I have but one ambition.” “And that is — ?” “To be the serviceable slave of my country.” “A master is more serviceable than a slave,” said the old man. “No; no; I deny it. I can admit much from you, but I cannot admit that. The politician who becomes the master of his country sinks from the statesman to the tyrant.”"

"Caveat emptor is the only motto going, and the worst proverb that ever came from the dishonest stony-hearted Rome."

"The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature."

"“Would that be justice, ladies?” asked the just man. “It would be success, Mr. Low, — which is a great deal the better thing of the two.”"