Alan Hollinghurst

He wanted pure compliments, just as he wanted unconditional love.

The worse they are the more they see beauty in each other

It was the time of year when the atmosphere streamed with unexpected hints and memories, and a paradoxical sense of renewal.

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.

The pursuit of love seemed to need the cultivation of indifference.