Captain Corelli's Mandolin

by Louis de Bernières

I will string him up by his copious moustache and remove his testicles without anaesthetic.

‘Did you know that childhood is the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected?’ asked the doctor rhetorically.

Kokolios smiled dangerously and said, ‘Son of a whore, am I? Well, you can just drink my fart.’

The word ‘heartbroken’ occurs to me, except that this is inadequate to describe the sensation of being utterly broken in both body and soul.

here it was possible to place one’s hand on that antique bark, look up at the fragments of sky that glittered through the canopy, and feel dwarfed by the sensation that others might have done this very thing under this very tree a millennium before.

a man who loved life so much that he did not care what kind of impression he made.

One can only forgive a sin after the sinner has finished committing it, because we cannot allow ourselves to condone it whilst it is still being perpetrated.