Penelope Fitzgerald

"The frame of mind, however, is everything. Given that, one can have a very satisfactory party all by oneself."

"Helping other people is a drug so dangerous that there is no cure, short of total abstention."

"There are dilettantes in human relationships just as there are, let's say, in politics."

"He struggled to keep his temper. It struck him that both Marta and Chiara took advantage of him by attacking him with their ignorance, or call it innocence. A serious thinking adult had no defence against innocence because he was obliged to respect it, whereas the innocent scarcely knows what respect is, or seriousness either."