It made me perfectly happy with my own company and perhaps was good conditioning for the protracted solitude of writing books as slowly as I do. ALAN HOLLINGHURST BookClowCompanyConditionHappyMadeOwnPerfectlyPerhapsProtractWrite
I was rather a goody-goody as a child… It was only later on I discovered that you could be naughty and get away with it. ALAN HOLLINGHURST ChildGoodyRather
she kept sliding down, in small half-willing surrenders, till she was a heap, with the book held tiringly above her face. ALAN HOLLINGHURST AboveBookDownFaceHalfHeapLeptSheSlideSmallSurrenderTingly
There was the noise itself, which he thought of vaguely as the noise of classical music, sameish and rhetorical, full of feelings people surely never had ALAN HOLLINGHURST ClassicalFeelingFullItselfMusicNoicePeopleRhetoricalSurelyThoughtVaguely
Now that I had actually made love, more astonishingly now that I had been made love to, the fantasies were subtly undermined. ALAN HOLLINGHURST ActualAstonishinglyBenFantasiesLoveMadeMoreSubtlyUndermined
The squandering of brilliant technique on cheap material. ALAN HOLLINGHURST BrillantCheapMaterialSquanderTechnique
I think being an only child created in me a degree of self-reliance, which I’m glad of. ALAN HOLLINGHURST BeingChildCreateDegreeGladMadeRelianceSelfThink
To apologize for what you most wanted to do, to concede that it was obnoxious, boring, ‘vulgar and unsafe’ — that was the worst thing. ALAN HOLLINGHURST ApologizeBoreConcedeMoveObnoxiousThingUnsafeVulgarWantWorst
The great wisdom for writers, perhaps for everybody, is to come to understand to be at one with their own tempo. ALAN HOLLINGHURST ComeEverybodyGreatOneOwnPerhapsTempoUnderstandWisdomWriter
The worse they are the more they see beauty in each other. ALAN HOLLINGHURST BeautyEach OtherMoreSeWorse
He wanted pure compliments, just as he wanted unconditional love. ALAN HOLLINGHURST ComplimentLoveUnconditionalWant
…all his longings came out as a kind of disdain for what he longed for. ALAN HOLLINGHURST AllAntCameKindLongingLoveOutUnconditional
