“The art of happiness is being content with what you have,' she would say, looking with apparent satisfaction out of the dusty windows at the garden, yellowing like an uncut hayfield in the October sunshine.”
“Don't be afraid of the future, little Julia. Take your present life and live it.”
“They were all wrong and the dreams and seeings were right. And there was nothing wrong with me. I felt my shoulders go back and my head come up, and I smiled at the doctor and promised to be prompt at his house in the morning; and as I smiled I sensed all the familiar strength - the strength which I named as the Lacey strength, Beatrice strength - come back to me, and I looked him in his pale blue eyes and thought to myself: you and I are enemies while you try to change me, for I will never change.”
“For a moment I felt the terror. The deep primeval terror of something one does not understand, something which is against nature or, at the least, against everything one has ever seen or known before.”
“The scene had been a nightmare, one of those insane nightmares where the most normal objects become infinitely menacing.”
“She poured me a cup of coffee and I drank it standing by the back door, looking out of the back garden. I felt it scald my tongue but it did not warm me. It was heavy with sugar but it did not taste sweet. I gave a little sigh. There are some days when nothing seems right.”
“Don't waste your courage on hating him. Keep yourself to yourself. And keep up your courage.”
“We are joint heirs,' I said in a sharp undertone. 'The land will always be partly mine.'
Richard smiled, a smile like midsummer skies. 'I shan't regard it.' He said sweetly. 'And you don't know the law, my clever little cousin. If they commit you to an asylum, you are disinherited at once. Did you not know that, my dear? If you go on with your seeings and your dreamings, you will lose everything.”
“Funny sky,' he said, squinting up at the thick-bellied white clouds and the sun shining so hot on them but not breaking through.
'It feels as if there should be a storm,' I said 'but it was like this at haymaking and the weather never properly broke then.'
'If I was at sea I should run for a port,' Ralph said. He was looking towards the horizon where there was a yellow tinge to the sky over the top of the downs.”
“Avoiding me, Quen downed a swallow of wine. "Trent is a fine young man," he said, watching the remaining wine swirl.
"Yes... " I drawled, cautiously. "If you can call a drug lord and outlawed-medicine manufacturer a fine young man.”
“Who knows what oversensitive is, considering all there is to be sensitive to.”
“Dear Anyone: This is a letter from one anyone to another anyone, no names required, because nobody really knows anyway. Names don't make a hell of a lot of difference. The world is made up entirely of strangers. Millions and millions of them. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else. Sometimes we think we know other people, especially those we supposedly are close to, but if we really knew them, why are we so often surprised by the shit they do? Like, parents are always surprised by what their kids will do. They raise them from the time they are babies, spend each and every day with them, think they're these goddamn fucking angels, and then one day the cops come to the door and say hey, guess what parents? Your kid just bashed some other kid's head in with a baseball bat. Or you're the kid, and you think things are pretty fucking OK, and then one day this guy who's supposed to be your dad says so long, have a nice life. And you think, what the fuck is this? So years later, your mom ends up living with another guy, and he seems OK, but you think, when's it coming? That's what life is. Life is always asking yourself, when's it coming? Because if it hasn't come for a long time, you know you're fucking due. All the best, Anyone.”
“You have to have the power to employ pain, to repent, to be illuminated, you must have the opportunity and even the time.”
“Then he’d given Alexander the territories of Armenia, Media, and the unconquered empire of Parthia.”
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