Quotes from The Piano Man's Daughter

“As for the myths, take anyone's life and deny that most of it is deliberate self-delusion - an aggrandizement - a mixture of lies and truth, of what was wanted and what was had, producing the necessary justification for having been granted life in the first place. I was struck like a match, Lily wrote. I had no option but to burn.
You can put a period after that. Lily did. It was the story of her life.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

“Ede had been pregnant not quite the full term: eight months, two weeks, four days. She had lapsed into an extended silence - partly because she was still in mourning - still enraged and afraid of speech. And partly, too, because the child itself had taken up dreaming in her belly - dreaming and, Ede was certain, singing. Not singing songs a person knew, of course. Nothing Ede could recognize. But songs for certain. Music - with a tune to it. Evocative. A song about self. A song about place. As if a bird had sung it, sitting in a tree at the edge of a field. Or high in the air above a field. A hovering song. Of recognition.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

“I can't work in a house where there's saints. The minute there's saints, the devil sends messengers”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

“I tell you Charlie, I was there waiting in that field. waiting for Ede and Tom to find me. You don't think two people come together for nothing, do you? They were together because I was waiting to be found..."
Then she looked straight into my face and said to me: "You know it, too, Charlie. All that time you waited for me to find you. What if I hadn't? What if I'd said: I won't?"
She turned, and clinging to my arm, she surveyed the fields of snow the stretched away to the confining wall.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

“Frederick?
Had she really spoken? Certainly she'd tried, but her voice had failed to materialize and all she heard was the sound of her nightgown ripping as Frederick pulled it over her head and threw it aside.
He was kneeling now between her ankles, pushing at her, forcing her knees apart and then her arms until she was entirely splayed on the bed beneath him.
Nothing was said. Not a word.
Ede felt his hand between her legs, forcing the way for the rest of him. Stop, she wanted to tell him. Stop. I don't understand what you're doing. But nothing - still nothing was said.
He seemed to be raging inside her, moving his hips in a circular fashion, all the weight of his upper body help above her, resting on his arms, his hands pushing down into the mattress.
Stop! But he didn't.
Don't! But he did.
Nothing. Not one word.
The only sound he made was a choking noise in his throat at the end, as tough he might be going to strangle. But when he rolled away from her onto his back, she felt the shudder of his first free breath and she heard him sigh. It was over. Tonight. It was done.
Ede could not bare the thought of seeing him, or of being seen. Still without speaking, she rose from the bed and through the dark, found her way to the bathroom. She had brought the torn nightgown wit her, but when she turned on the light and saw it, she threw it down in the corner. Ruined. Spoiled. Everything.
When at last, she returned to the bed, Fredrick was sound asleep beneath the covers - and nothing - nothing - nothing was said.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

“With Tom, there had never been a door to close, only the grass to lie on, never a bed; no walls, no ceiling to shut them in - or others out. Only the moon to see them, only the moon, some stars and whatever it was that had flown up out of the field when Ede had cried 'don't' in the final seconds of their embrace. Don't - meaning don't withdraw.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from The Piano Man's Daughter

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“Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain,
You, at least, hail me and speak to me
While a thousand others ignore my face.
You offer me an hour of love,
And your fees are not as costly as most.
You are the madonna of the lonely,
The first-born daughter in a world of pain.
You do not turn fat men aside,
Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones,
You are the meadow where desperate men
Can find a moment's comfort.

Men have paid more to their wives
To know a bit of peace
And could not walk away without the guilt
That masquerades as love.
You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort them
And bid them return.
Your body is more Christian than the Bishop's
Whose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood.
Your passion is as genuine as most,
Your caring as real!

But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain,
You, whose virginity each man may make his own
Without paying ought but your fee,
You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions,
You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger,
Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive,
You make more sense than stock markets and football games
Where sad men beg for virility.
You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less?

At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive,
At times you are shrewd and deceptive--grasping and hollow.
The wonder is that at times you are gentle and concerned,
Warm and loving.
You deserve more respect than nuns who hide their sex for eternal love;
Your fees are not so high, nor your prejudice so virtuous.
You deserve more laurels than the self-pitying mother of many children,
And your fee is not as costly as most.

Man comes to you when his bed is filled with brass and emptiness,
When liquor has dulled his sense enough
To know his need of you.
He will come in fantasy and despair, Maria,
And leave without apologies.
He will come in loneliness--and perhaps
Leave in loneliness as well.
But you give him more than soldiers who win medals and pensions,
More than priests who offer absolution
And sweet-smelling ritual,
More than friends who anticipate his death
Or challenge his life,
And your fee is not as costly as most.

You admit that your love is for a fee,
Few women can be as honest.
There are monuments to statesmen who gave nothing to anyone
Except their hungry ego,
Monuments to mothers who turned their children
Into starving, anxious bodies,
Monuments to Lady Liberty who makes poor men prisoners.
I would erect a monument for you--
who give more than most--
And for a meager fee.

Among the lonely, you are perhaps the loneliest of all,
You come so close to love
But it eludes you
While proper women march to church and fantasize
In the silence of their rooms,
While lonely women take their husbands' arms
To hold them on life's surface,
While chattering women fill their closets with clothes and
Their lips with lies,
You offer love for a fee--which is not as costly as most--
And remain a lonely prostitute on a street of pain.

You are not immoral, little Maria, only tired and afraid,
But you are not as hollow as the police who pursue you,
The politicians who jail you, the pharisees who scorn you.
You give what you promise--take your paltry fee--and
Wander on the endless, aching pavements of pain.
You know more of universal love than the nations who thrive on war,
More than the churches whose dogmas are private vendettas made sacred,
More than the tall buildings and sprawling factories
Where men wear chains.
You are a lonely prostitute who speaks to me as I pass,
And I smile at you because I am a lonely man.”
― James Kavanaugh, quote from There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

“A woman knows her children's friends, hopes, dreams, romances, secret fears, what they are thinking, how they are feeling and, usually, what mischief they are plotting. Men are vaguely aware of some short people also living in the house.”
― Allan Pease, quote from Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It

“It wasn't the tequila and oxy. You really are that fucking gorgeous.”
― Adrian Phoenix, quote from In the Blood

“The judge's massive eyebrows crept up. "Kaldar. Are you the one speaking for the plaintiff today?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Well, shit," Dobe said. "I guess you're familiar with the law. You hit it over the head, set its house on fire, and got its sister pregnant.”
― Ilona Andrews, quote from Bayou Moon

“Do all men kiss like that? (Rowena)
I know not since I have never kissed a man. (Stryder)”
― Kinley MacGregor, quote from A Dark Champion

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