Elizabeth Brundage · 400 pages
Rating: (6.6K votes)
“Her mother had told her that when she was a girl. Whenever you’re in trouble, just remember you’re your own best friend.”
“There was no disguise for real love, she thought, and suddenly understood all that she did not have.”
“It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it.”
“Inness painted from memory, which is to say that he didn't paint what he saw, but what he remembered. There's a difference. He believed memory was a lens to the soul. It's not the details that matter - the veins on a leaf, say- so much as the implied detail, such as the changing light, the wind, the lone peasant in the distance the sense that something else is going on, some deeper possibilitly ....”
“Beauty depends on the unseen, George quoted the artist, the visible upon the invisible.”
“Questa è la fattoria Hale.
Ecco la vecchia stalla per la mungitura, l’entrata buia che dice Vieni a cercarmi.
Ecco la banderuola, la catasta di legna.
Ecco la casa, echeggiante di storie.
È presto. Il falco vola lento nel cielo sgombro. Una sottile piuma blu volteggia nel vuoto. L’aria è fredda, limpida. La casa è silenziosa, come la cucina, il divano di velluto blu, la piccola tazza da tè bianca.
Da sempre la fattoria canta per noi, le sue famiglie perdute, i suoi soldati e le mogli. Durante la guerra, quando arrivarono con le baionette, entrando con la forza, gli stivali infangati sulle scale. Patrioti. Banditi. Mariti. Padri. Dormivano nei letti freddi. Razziavano la cantina in cerca di barattoli di pesche sciroppate e barbabietole da zucchero. Accendevano grandi fuochi nel campo, e le fiamme si contorcevano, schioccando alte verso il cielo. Fuochi che ridevano. Le facce calde brillavano e le mani erano in tasca, al riparo. Arrostivano un maiale e strappavano la carne dolce e rosea dall’osso. Dopo, si succhiavano via il grasso dalle dita, un sapore familiare, strano.
Ce ne sono stati altri – molti – che hanno rubato, smantellato e saccheggiato. Perfino i tubi di rame, perfino le mattonelle di ceramica. Quello che potevano prendere, prendevano. Hanno lasciato solo i muri, i pavimenti spogli. Il cuore pulsante in cantina.
Noi aspettiamo. Siamo pazienti. Aspettiamo notizie. Aspettiamo che ci venga detto qualcosa. Il vento sta provando a farlo. Gli alberi ondeggiano. È la fine di qualcosa; lo sentiamo. Presto sapremo.”
“It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it”
“Something kept them together, frustration possibly. Like they were two parts of a troubling equation that neither could find the answer to. It was out there somewhere, in infinity, she often thought. Maybe they’d never find it.”
“She said most people were good on the inside, where it mattered. You have to give them a chance to show their goodness, she used to say. Some people need more time, that’s all.”
“I know you want me to feel some sympathy for them, but that's not who I am. I care only about those I know, and even then, not all that deeply. Strangers get nothing from me.”
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
“Science is a method, not a religion, yet it can be just as close-minded. Open minds here Claire. Always open minds. Question everything, accept nothing as fact until you prove it for yourself.”
“I want to Live! Not Die, Not Hide, LIVE!”
“Early in 1955 Flannery completed work on her second book, a collection of these stories which she entitled A Good Man Is Hard to Find. In January we sent it to press, having set publication for June. I remember our amusement at Evelyn Waugh’s reaction to the advance proofs we sent him: “If these stories are in fact the work of a young lady, they are indeed remarkable.”
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