“Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.
Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace”
“Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.”
“A scar is not always a flaw. Sometimes a scar may be redemption inscribed in the flesh, a memorial to something endured, to something lost.”
“There are people who want everybody dead. When you get over being surprised about that, you have a high amazement threshold.”
“These days, people spent too much time striving to understand their feelings - and then ended up with none that were genuine.”
“He, too, had been glassed-in for a long time, by choice. Now and then he had lifted a hammer to shatter through to something, but he had never struck the blow because he didn't know what he wanted on the other side of the glass.”
“When a knot gets to tight, you can always cut the rope”
“By their subtle reversal of all images, mirrors seemed to be windows to another world in opposistion to this one, a world where everything appeared familiar but was infact profoundly different”
“Maybe it was this: The name of a person marked for murder is just a name, but the face makes real the cost of violence, for if we have the nerve to look, we can see in any face our own vulnerability.”
“The killer walked with a light step that could be achieved only by someone not weighed down with a conscience, and went out into the night's embrace.”
“Gradually, however, she revealed a frustration with the willful ignorance that is an abiding human trait, an indignation at the cruelty that people visit upon one another. She might see the world as hopeless, but she believed it did not have to remain that way.”
“Fear is a hammer, and when the people are beaten finally to the conviction that their existence hangs by a frayed thread, they will be led where they need to go.”
“Sudden falls can come to societies that know too little history or that have furnished their minds with easy one-note propaganda in place of the true complexity and terrible beauty of the storied past.”
“Sorrow is not a raven perched persistently above a chamber door. Sorrow is a thing with teeth, and while in time it retreats, it comes back at the whisper of its name.”
“A circle only knows its own shape. If you ask where it begins and where it ends, it will stay silent, yet unbroken.”
“Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years. You don’t even notice it creeping up. It happens, trickle by trickle. You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a ‘taken-for-granted’ attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often too late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone has been established. A zone that is hard to get out of.”
“All food, comfort, energy, shelter, space, fuel and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least.”
“Time is, to put it in its most impressive and some might say poncy-sounding form, my domain. I can see things that once happened, even if they haven't happened any more. Well, if I concentrate. The new reality-the real reality- keeps asserting itself, even with me. But the other time line leaves echoes, ripples, if you look hard enough.”
“He seemed about to go on in this strain, which was a favorite of his, but then recollected himself, and said wryly, "I reveal myself more with every word. I am honest, Natalie, and sometimes ashamed of it."
"I always am, when I'm honest," Natalie said.
"Are you?" he asked with interest. "Do you know when you're being honest?"
"Usually," Natalie said. "If I'm surprised at myself for saying it thinking it, it's honest.”
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