More excellent lines from Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending

"I remember what old Joe Hunt said when arguing with Adrian, that past mental states can be inferred from actions. That's in history with Henry VIII and all that, whereas in the private life, I think the converse is true - that you can infer past actions from current mental states. I certainly believe we all suffer damage in one way or another. How could we not except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions. And then there's the question on which so much depends: of how we react to the damage. Whether we admit it or repress it, and whether this affects our dealings with others. Some admit the damage and try to mitigate it, some other spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged, and then there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves at whatever cost, and those are the ones who are ruthless and the ones to be careful of. You might think this is rubbish - preachy, self-justificatory rubbish. You might think I behaved towards Veronica like a typically callow male and that all my conclusions are reversible. For example, "After we broke up she slept with me" flips easily into "After she slept with me I broke up with her". You might also decide that the Fords were a normal middle class English family on whom I was chippily foisting bogus theories of damage, and that Mrs Ford instead of being tactfully concerned on my behalf was displaying an indecent jealousy of her own daughter. You might even ask me to apply my own theory to myself, and explain what damage I'd had suffered a long way back and what its consequences might be. For instance, how it may affect my reliability and truthfulness. I'm not sure I could answer this to be honest".

- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.