Richard Mason > Quotes

“My wife of more than forty-years shot herself yesterday afternoon.

At least that is what the police assume, and I am playing the part of grieving widower with enthusiasm and success. Life with Sarah has schooled me in self-deception, which I find--as she did--to be an excellent training in the deceiving of others. Of course I know that she did nothing of the kind. My wife was far too sane, far too rooted in the present to think of harming herself. In my opinion she never gave a thought to what she had done. She was incapable of guilt.

It was I who killed her.”
― Richard Mason, The Drowning People

“The adventures of adolescence had taught Piet Barol that he was extremely attractive to most women and to many men. He was old enough to be pragmatic about this advantage, young enough to be immodest, and experienced enough to suspect that it might be decisive in this, as in other circumstances.”
― Richard Mason, History of a Pleasure Seeker

“Nature has been sold into slavery”
― Richard Mason, Who Killed Piet Barol?

“Death, in any case,' [...] 'is the object of life. Our only lesson is this: to learn how to die.”
― Richard Mason, Who Killed Piet Barol?

“liked people to be what they appeared to be.”
― Richard Mason, The Drowning People

“[...]she wondered, for the first time, whether perhaps notions of one race's superiority were rather silly.”
― Richard Mason, Who Killed Piet Barol?

“[...] it seemed to his methodical mind that Moses has not considered every situation when applying his blanket ban on theft.”
― Richard Mason, Who Killed Piet Barol?

“I liked people to be what they appeared to be. I shrank from the private fears and insecurities of others because, perhaps, by admitting theirs I had to move closer to admitting my own. I don’t know.”
― Richard Mason, The Drowning People