Edward St. Aubyn quotes:

If anything should take place behind closed doors, it was cruelty and betrayal.

No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.

Were the ironies of taxation any better: raising money for schools and hospitals and roads and bridges, and spending it on blowing up schools and hospitals and roads and bridges in self-defeating wars?

His conscience, like a sunburnt scorpion, was stinging itself to death.