'Nearly forgot your cream', he said lightly. 'Wouldn't like to think I was driving you off by not pandering to your fleshy weaknesses. I like a few fleshy weaknesses in my priests.'

Hollins sayd 'Just as I like small acts of generosity from my sinners.'

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.462

At the head of a fresh sheet of paper he wrote Chapter 97 in the same immaculate hand with wich he had inscribed Chapter 1 nearly forty years ago. Sometimes he looked back a trifle ruefully at his chosen title, A Brief History of the Phoenician People, but a delicate sense of irony prevented him from changing it.

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.377

They removed the outer brown paper with a synchronicity that would have got them into an Olympic synchronized paper-removing team, only to find themselves confronted by a substantial layer of clear plastic wrapping.

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.334

Imogen said, "When Wolf and I used to go climbing together, he taught me, when you're working at a line of ascent, look for the most hazardous route, the closer to impossible the better. Then resist the temptations to try it if you can.'
'I'm sorry. I don't get that.'

Imogen smiled as if unsurprised.
She said, 'Wolf used to say that rock climbing wasn't about getting to the top, it was about falling.'
'Conquering the fear of falling, you mean?'
Imogen shook her head impatiently.
'Conquering the desire to fall', she said.

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.306

It had come as a disappointment to her as student to realize that understanding the often irrational origins of common emotions didn't stop you feeling them.

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.276

Human beings are better at avoidance than achievement. When things are bad, don't look for a good to struggle to, look for something worse to struggle from!

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.324

Est-ce parce qu'il est anglais, ou est-ce parce que c'est Reginald Hill, que l'on trouve de telles allusions tout naturellement glissées dans son dernier roman?

But they've done it once too often, and suddenly cops spring up all around as if someone had ben sowing dragon's teeth.

Reginald Hill, The Woodcutter, p.7

PS: pour mémoire, semaille de dents de dragon.