The Portable Door Quotes

“The worst punishment there is for wanting the wrong thing is getting it.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“The world is full of interiors that bleach the spirit. Hospitals, police stations, job centres, local government offices and prisons all have their own subtle type of vampire colour scheme and black-hole furnishing, capable by accident or design of wiping away a person's self-esteem and will to resist, like boiled-over soup off a ceramic hob.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“Mr Tanner frowned at him, as though he was a spelling mistake.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“It was one of those moments when the moral high ground opens and swallows you up.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“it was all very well for Neville to talk blithely about chucking in this job and getting a nice one instead, but it had taken him a very long time to find anybody who was prepared to trade him money for a part of his lifespan, and the only people who’d proved willing to make such a deal were, by any criteria, as crazy as a barrelful of ferrets.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“Being a really evil bastard isn’t just a job, it’s a vocation!”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“The worst punishment there is for wanting the wrong thing is getting it.)”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“My guess is, if the other party annoys the hell out of you from day one, it makes for a smooth, well-balanced relationship, because that way you sort of fast-forward through the dopey, sun-shines-out-of-his-or-her-backside phase and get to the mutually-assured-irritation stage that seems to be the default setting for all long-term human couplings, without any of the disillusionment and disappointment that everybody else’s got to get through first.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door

“Nobody, not Darwin’s best friend, not even God’s mother could tell him that this was any way to run a universe. The only conclusion Paul could possibly draw was that the whole operation had gone to cock, and a billion years of mutating plankton would be entirely justified in asking for their money back.”
― Tom Holt, The Portable Door