The Golden Tresses of the Dead

As we stepped forth side by side into the darkness, toward the waiting car, I thought of what a strange world it was, where life was lived pressed so tightly cheek to cheek with death: with so little space between, that they might well be one and the same thing. But in the end, when you stop to think about it, we are, after all, no more than mere particles of dust, drifting alone together through eternity, and so it is pleasant to think that we have—in this way or that, for better or for worse—reached out and touched one another. That, in the end, is what chemistry is all about, isn't it?

Alone in my room, I pondered the evidence. A perfect phrase. I would jot it down for future use. Like it or not, there are times when you need to be alone; times when you need to be lonely; times when you need to need other people.

A church is a wonderful place for a wedding, surrounded as it is by the legions of the dead, whose listening bones bear silent witness to every promise made—and broken—at the altar. Dead now, every last one of them, including the man who invented the rule about not putting your elbows on the dinner table.

Memories, I was coming to realize, can be sharper than daggers.

Humility is a most excellent barometer," he said, "and ought to be looked for in all those we are made to look up to.

I called Miss Daphne, but she says she doesn't want 'er tea. She's got 'er nose stuck in a book. Useless, I think it's called, by some woman named Joyce.

Sometimes, when Fate deals you into a game you weren't expecting, you can only play your cards to the best of your ability.

We who lose parents are one, I thought. We all of us are as brothers and sisters of a single blood.

It's astonishing what the human heart will do to make allegiances. Loneliness is a kind of glue that can bind us to the most unlikely strangers.

Like it or not, there are times when you need to be alone; times when you need to be lonely; times when you need to need other people.

It’s all so complicated,” she said again. “All so infernally complicated.” “It’s about money, isn’t it?” I asked. This was no great leap of deduction. All great problems, when whittled down to their root, were about money. No matter how tangled they seemed on the surface, the bottom was always banknotes.

His was a kind of gentleness which, I think, cannot be learned and cannot be taught.

I found myself wondering if, by whistling about whistling while you work while you were actually working, you would cause some odd bit of the universe, in some unknown dimension, to fold in upon itself—rather like a Klein bottle, which has no inside or outside—causing you to disappear up your own posterior in a cloud of probably invisible orange smoke.

On listening to Gute Nacht Aus Schuberts Winterreise Great music has much the same effect upon humans as cyanide, I managed to think: It paralyzes the respiratory system.

O, how I wanted to hug him! O, how I wanted to pour our my affection! But there are times, I was learning, when one must not, on any account, give in to impulse. It was, I suppose, what they mean by the whole idea of "being British": holding oneself in check for the greater good; substituting the encouraging word for the crushing embrace.

It is the hallmark of the beast in us,” Dogger continued, “which requires a modicum of truth in our transgressions, no matter how finely distilled; no matter how thinly diluted.

But in the end, when you stop to think about it, we are, after all, no more than mere particles of dust, drifting along together through eternity, and so it is pleasant to think that we have—in this way or that, for better or for worse—reached out and touched one another. That, in the end, is what chemistry is all about, isn’t it?

if ever I were given the opportunity to compose my own epitaph, I would have engraved upon my tombstone: Here lies Flavia de Luce—A Good Samaritan So to Speak, followed by the dates of my birth and death.

How can I help?” I asked, as Anglicans have been taught to do—and in spite of the fact that our family have been Roman Catholics since St. Peter was a sailor.

Saving a life is not servile, no matter how it looks.

Even the most foul of us likes to believe we have a saving grace.

O, how I wish I could have conducted a chemical analysis on the look Inspector Hewitt gave me! It was composed of equal parts skepticism, outrage, acceptance, gratitude, relief, and surrender. I had never seen anything quite like it.

I almost clasped my hands together. This amazing man was so noble he might have been born in armor and on horseback, ready-equipped with shield and lance.

I'm sorry I said it twice," Undine said. "I sometimes suffer from an excess of zeal.

It would not be out of order to remark here that a chemist's work is never done. Those choosing it asa profession ought to know at the outset that most of their lives will be spent washing up.

Life was dear, in every sense of the word. You just needed to remember it in the dark.

the glorious words of the 1599 Geneva Bible: Love suffereth long: it is bountiful: love envieth not: love doth not boast itself: it is not puffed up: It doth no uncomely thing: it seeketh not her own thing: it is not provoked to anger: it thinketh no evil: It rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth: It suffereth all things: it believeth all things: it hopeth all things: it endureth all things. Love doth never fall away, though that prophesyings be abolished, or the tongues cease, or knowledge vanish away.

Call the police! “I’ll do it,” I said. “I know Inspector Hewitt’s number off by heart.” “Very good,” Dogger said. “But before you do, let’s have a quick dekko at the place. This lady isn’t going anywhere.” It was a moment right out of Philip Odell, the famous wireless detective, and I’m afraid I clasped my hands together under my chin. Such moments of bliss were few in my life and I needed to savor them the moment they occurred.

Change is unwelcome in prisons and hospitals. It is only their sameness which makes them tolerable to those kept captive within their walls.

Being stumped often offers a whole new beginning. It sometimes generates just enough anger to solve the case.