Jonathan Cracknell

“The victim chose neither the time nor the place of his death but in going to it as he did he must have seen that he contributed something of his own to its manner; and this was probably his compensation; so that when the body falls it will seem to do so without protest and without asking for any explanation of the thing that has happened to it, as if all that has gone before is explanation enough, so that it will not fall to the ground so much as out of a history which began with a girl stumbling on steps at the end of a long journey through the dark.”
― Paul Scott, A Division of the Spoils

“He said history was a sum of situations whose significance was never seen until long afterwards because people had been afraid to act them out. They couldn’t face up to their responsibility for them. They preferred to think of the situations they found themselves in as part of a general drift of events they had no control over, which meant that they never really understood those situations, and so in a curious way the situations did become part of a general drift of events.”
― Paul Scott, The Day of the Scorpion

“No flower is quite like another of the same species. On a single bush one is constantly surprised by the remarkable character shown by each individual rose. But from the house all one sees is a garden, which is all there is to it anyway in the long run.”
― Paul Scott, The Towers of Silence

“The permutations of English corruption in India were endless”
― Paul Scott, The Day of the Scorpion