The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home?

If this isn’t hell, the devil is surely taking notes.

Too little information and you're blind, too much and you're blinded.

We are never more ourselves than when we think people aren’t watching.

Nothing like a mask to reveal somebody's true nature.

So many memories and secrets, so many burdens. Every life has such weight. I don’t know how anybody carries even one.

Can’t you see, these masks we wear betray us. They reveal us.

Anger’s solid, it has weight. You can beat your fists against it. Pity’s a fog to become lost within.

What use is rearranging the furniture if you burn the house down doing it?

Life doesn’t always leave you a choice in how you live it.

The future isn’t a warning my friend, it’s a promise, and it won’t be broken by us. That’s the nature of the trap we’re caught in.

How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home? This lost, I decide. Precisely this lost.

...bars can't build better men and misery can only break what goodness remains.

That’s the beauty of corrupt men, you can always rely on them to be corrupt

Tomorrow can be whatever I want it to be, which means for the first time in decades, I can look forward to it. Instead of being something to fear, it can be a promise I make myself. A chance to be braver or kinder, to make what was wrong right. To be better than I am today. Every day after this one is a gift. I just have to keep walking until I get there.

If this is hell, then it's one of our making.

I'm saying every man is in a cage of his own making.

One by one I knit these new memories together until I’ve got five minutes of past to wrap myself in.

I’m no longer a man, I’m a chorus

I'm any face in a crowd; just the Lord's way of filling in the gaps.

Tomorrow, I'll see his face in the mirror, and, somehow, I"ll have to make it mine. To do that, I need to start again, free of the past, free of him and the mistakes he made. Instead of the impossible, I'll need only to concern myself with the ordinary. The luxury of waking up in the same bed.... The luxury of sunshine. The luxury of honesty. The luxury of living a life... Tomorrow can be whatever I want it to be, which means for the first time in decades, I can look forward to it. Instead of being something to fear, it can be a promise I make myself. A chance to be braver or kinder, to make what was wrong right. To be better than I am today. Every day after this one is a gift. I just have to keep walking until I get there.

The last time I entered this forest, my mind never made it back.

Not all hells are created equal.

Wealth is poisonous to the soul, and my parents have been wealthy a very long time—as have most of the guests who will be at this party. Their manners are a mask; you’d do well to remember that.

The Plague Doctor claimed Blackheath was meant to rehabilitate us, but bars can’t build better men and misery can only break what goodness remains. This place pinches out the hope in people, and without that hope, what use is love or compassion or kindness?

Yet instead of being angry, he pities me. That's the worst part. Anger's solid, it has weight. You can beat your fists against it. Pity's a fog to become lost in.

Oh, don’t mind me,” she says. “I loathe getting to know people, so whenever I meet somebody I like, I just assume a friendship immediately. It saves a great deal of time in the long run.

Thankfully, the leaves and twigs are so demoralized by the earlier rain they don't have the heart to cry out beneath my feet.

I imagine it would be rather splendid to wander away from myself for a little while.

I suddenly have the sense of taking part in a play in which everybody knows their lines but me.