'Caroline is being mystical,' Ernest said.
'Caroline is a mystic,' said Eleanor. 'I've always said so. She's a mystic, isn't she, Laurence?'

'Every time,' said Lawrence, very pleasantly.

'And the trouble with these mystics, the theorise on the basis of other people's sufferings, and in the end they belittle suffering. Caroline, if you'd suffered as much as I'd suffered, you wouldn't be talking like something out of this world.'

'I won't compete with you on the question of suffering,' Caroline spoke acidly, for, after all, she rather fancied herself a sufferer.

-Muriel Spark, The Comforters