“He adored both cards and roulette, often playing at several table simultaneously, displaying the committed masochism of Dostoevsky, who claimed that the real thrill of involvement only began when he had pawned his wife’s jewels and was staking the proceeds. Francis failed to convince me that there was a deep satisfaction in being completely ‘cleaned out.'”

Michael Wishart quoted in Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma, 123-124.