Snow (St. John Strafford, #2)

by John Banville

But then, his father was still living, and the living require more thought.

The policeman insists that there be a plot. However, life itself is plotless.

‘Time is a great healer, that’s what they say, don’t they? They’re all so wise.’

“humankind cannot bear very much reality”. The social contract is a fragile document.

Misfortune, which should teach us to be decent to one another, makes brutes of us instead.

‘The most that could have been done,’ he said, ‘would have been to get him transferred. That’s all the Church ever does, when one of theirs lands in trouble. Then he’d just get up to his old tricks somewhere else.’