“Let's pretend for just one moment that could actually happen. You close your eyes and I'll close mine and let's dream the same dream across the Atlantic, lighting up the darkness between us. Can you see it, Stu? Can you see us up there, shining in all the black?”
“That's not how you're going to live, Bird Girl. Not on my account. Spread those strong wings of yours. Fly.”
“We didn't speak, just drove out of the city into the countryside on our way to absolutely nowhere, and when we found that perfect spot among the trees, we stopped and looked at each other. Swallows swooped through the red sky, back from their adventure, and we held each other underneath the ketchup clouds, willing time to stop and the world to forget us for a while.”
“I like winter and I like the dark and I like cats and I like the rain and I like walking up mountains and sitting at the top in the fog . That's all I need to know about my life right now. It's pretty simple”
“So long, Bird Girl,' he whispered, changing the emphasis to stress the first word. 'So long,' I agreed, because a life without him would be.”
“Da lo mismo la lengua que hables o la ropa que lleves. Hay cosas que no cambian. Las familias. Los amigos. Los enamorados. Son iguales en todas las ciudades de todos los países de todos los continentes del mundo.”
“Algunas veces. Todo el mundo necesita que le escuchen”
“I never realised there was so much of it,' Sandra muttered. 'Hours. I feel every minute.”
“Los edificios y los adoquines y las escaleras y los callejones y las iglesias y los parques…, todo, la ciudad entera, nos perteneció por un precioso instante que era largo y ancho y, Stu, lo llenamos hasta el último resquicio.
Aquello era vivir.
Vivir de verdad”
“Doesn’t matter what language you speak or what clothes you wear. Some things don’t change. Families. Friends. Lovers. They’re the same in every city in every country in every continent of the world.”
“Y si lo tengo que escribir, prefiero hacerlo con lápiz para poder borrarlo todo inmediatamente, suprimiendo por completo esa parte de mi vida para que se disuelva en la nada y yo pueda empezar de nuevo, dibujándome como quiero ser, que es con una sonrisa de libertad y un corazón puro y un nombre que pueda escribir con mayúsculas porque no me dé miedo revelarlo en una carta garrapateada en un cobertizo.”
“Y sin pensármelo dos veces, sin preocuparme por las consecuencias, le agarré la cara y tiré de ella hacia la mía, y nuestras bocas se encontraron con tanto ímpetu que me dolió de la forma más dulce posible.”
“good reasons to do bad things”
“My stomach fluttered and my adrenaline tingled and I felt young, Mr Harris, really young in this precious sort of way”
“—¡Deja de jugar con la comida! —le dijo por signos mi madre.
—Son nubes —respondió Dot.
—Las nubes no son rojas —dijo por signos Soph.
—Es el amanecer —replicó por signos Dot, desafiante—. Porque en mi plato está amaneciendo. Y a la salchicha le parece precioso. —Le esculpió una sonrisa a la salchicha con el cuchillo.
—Vaya desastre —le dijo por signos mi madre.
—Pero un desastre bonito —sonrió Dot. Le dio la vuelta a su plato para enseñárselo a nuestra madre. La salchicha estaba tumbada de espaldas, sonriéndoles a las nubes de kétchup.”
“Ahora, señor Harris, estará usted probablemente esperando que le diga que le di patadas al arbusto o que me eché a llorar o que corrí al aparcamiento y monté una escena. Pues siento decepcionarle y todo eso, pero me quedé con la cara completamente tranquila y el cuerpo completamente inmóvil. Lo único que hice fue romper una telaraña, partiéndola en dos con el canto de la mano. Una mitad se quedó en el muro y la otra mitad balanceándose de una rama, y esa es la única prueba que hay en el mundo de que sentí que algo se me rompía por dentro.”
“Escribiendo no existe lo del nudo en la lengua, pero si existiera, si mi mano fuese como una lengua enorme, de verdad le digo que la tendría atada con uno de esos nudos complicados que solo los boy scouts saben deshacer.”
“«Para siempre en mi pensamiento, para siempre en mi corazón».”
“Tenía una de esas caras de pasa que todavía te las puedes imaginar cuando eran uva porque en algún lugar por debajo de las arrugas hubo una vez algo bonito.”
“If I could feel it for you, I would,'he murmured and honest truth I would have given anything to push my pain right into his chest.”
“Me dolía todo y en el mundo hacía frío y hasta las estrellas me parecían malvadas, agudos trozos de blanco que sobresalían de todo aquel negro.”
“Spread those strong wings of yours. Fly.”
“Cuando hay nubes es como si el mundo tuviera una capa de lana. Se está más calentito y eso.”
“Buenos motivos para hacer cosas malas... Interesante.”
“I won't tell you how much I love you, or how scared I am of being without you, or how I need to hide away from everyone because no one will ever compare to you... I will simply let you go. True love is about sacrifice, after all, and if I want you to be free of the memory of Max then you need to be free of me.”
“He was just standing on an ordinary pavement as cars roared behind him, and there was nothing special about it whatsoever except my heart didn't seem to realise. It soared out of my chest and into the sky, a flash of scarlet in all the blue.”
“I briefly wondered if children her age were taught to fear the rapist moustache because that’s one thing that would have had me running the other way (that and a white Chevy Astro van with no windows). But”
“Maria, groaning for scraps, would drape his head on my feet as I ate, trying to camouflage himself as my napkin or the rug.”
“They might add that monotheism is a political and psychological ideology as well as a religious one, and that the old economic lesson that one-crop economies generally fare poorly also applies to the spiritual realm.”
“CUTTING HIS BEATITUDE down to size on canvas and throwing rocks through his landlady’s window weren’t all M was doing on his return to Rome”
“Please may this not be a game. Please may this not be a game. Because if it’s a game, I know I’m going to lose.”
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