The Secret Agent

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This is a (darkly) funny book with many quotable lines. I’ve copied some of them below.

Quotes

He had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. p. 2

she preserved an air of unfathamable indifference p. 2

and with the thin, sensitive lips formed exactly for the utterance of those delicate witticisms which had made him such a favourite in the very highest society. p. 14

only that day Mr. Verloc’s taciturnity was so obviously thoughtful that the two women were impressed by it. p. 23

At this point, by simply associations of ideas, Mr. Verloc was brought face to face with the necessity of going to bed some time or other that evening. Then why not go now – at once? p. 33

The lamentable inferiority of the whole physique was made ludicrous by the supremely self-confident bearing of the individual. His speech was curt, and he had a particularly impressive inner of keeping silent. pp. 38–39

[…] look the picture of eager indecision. p. 39

The practical value of success depends not a little on the way you look at it. But Fate looks at nothing. It has no discretion. p. 56

The Assistant Commissioner’s delivery was leisurely, as it were cautious. His thought seemed to rest poised on a word before passing to another, as though words had been the stepping-stones for his intellect picking its way across the waters of error. p. 61

[…] waited for more information. As that did not come he proceeded to obtain it by a series of questions propounded with gentle patience. p. 79

[…] whose displeasure was made redoubtable by a diversity of dreadful silences. p. 96

The shock must have been severe enough to make her depart from that distant and uninquiring acceptance of facts which was her force and her safeguard in life. p. 97

The old woman welcomed it eagerly as bringing forward something that could be talked about without much sincerity. p. 97

Like the rest of mankind, perplexed by the mystery of the universe, he had his moments of consoling trust in the organized powers of the earth. p. 109

And, as often happens in the lament of poor humanity rich in suffering but indigent in words, the truth – the very cry of truth – was found in a worn and artificial shape picked up somewhere along the phrases of sham sentiment. p. 188