“I'm sometimes scared that I'm forgetting what my dad was like.”
― quote from Time Travelling with a Hamster
“Grandma Julie’s parents didn’t come to their wedding. Grandpa Byron says they were too busy, but that seems odd to me. Perhaps they were racists and didn’t like her marrying Grandpa Byron. Everyone was a racist in 1972, apparently.”
― quote from Time Travelling with a Hamster
“right arm got wrecked in a fireworks calamity, of all things. He was setting some off for a big display and part of the metal rig that they were resting on had a loose bolt or something, and the whole thing came down and crushed his arm. He can’t use it much and it looks a bit weird, kind of twisted to one side. He got some money from the insurance company, and he stopped working at the factory.”
― quote from Time Travelling with a Hamster
“Actually, what he said was that he thought it was 'stupendously unlikely'. That's what he used to say about things that he thought weren't real, but couldn't prove. Stupendously unlikely. It's a cool phrase.”
― quote from Time Travelling with a Hamster
“Grandpa Byron's eyes move left and right as he chooses his words. "I tried to. But I think I left it a bit late with your dad. He preferred computers to his own imagination." He looks at me, a bit sadly, I think. "A lot of people do these days.”
― quote from Time Travelling with a Hamster
“Comme un fou se croit Dieu, nous nous croyons mortels.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from Invitation to a Beheading
“For what good turn?
Messenger: For the best turn of the bed.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Antony and Cleopatra
“Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.”
― Nora Sakavic, quote from The Foxhole Court
“Want! You must want something. What do you want?”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“It’s dark as a tomb in here,” she said, unable to see more than shadows. “Will you light the candles, please,” she asked, “assuming there are candles in here?”
“Aye, milady, right there, next to the bed.” His shadow crossed before her, and Elizabeth focused on a large, oddly shaped object that she supposed could be a bed, given its size.
“Will you light them, please?” she urged. “I-I can’t see a thing in here.”
“His lordship don’t like more’n one candle lit in the bedchambers,” the footman said. “He says it’s a waste of beeswax.”
Elizabeth blinked in the darkness, torn somewhere between laughter and tears at her plight. “Oh,” she said, nonplussed. The footman lit a small candle at the far end of the room and left, closing the door behind him. “Milady?” Berta whispered, peering through the dark, impenetrable gloom. “Where are you?”
“I’m over here,” Elizabeth replied, walking cautiously forward, her arms outstretched, her hands groping about for possible obstructions in her path as she headed for what she hoped was the outside wall of the bedchamber, where there was bound to be a window with draperies hiding its light.
“Where?” Berta asked in a frightened whisper, and Elizabeth could hear the maid’s teeth chattering halfway across the room.
“Here-on your left.”
Berta followed the sound of her mistress’s voice and let out a terrified gasp at the sight of the ghostlike figure moving eerily through the darkness, arms outstretched. “Raise your arm,” she said urgently, “so I’ll know ‘tis you.”
Elizabeth, knowing Berta’s timid nature, complied immediately. She raised her arm, which, while calming poor Berta, unfortunately caused Elizabeth to walk straight into a slender, fluted pillar with a marble bust upon it, and they both began to topple. “Good God!” Elizabeth burst out, wrapping her arms protectively around the pillar and the marble object upon it. “Berta!” she said urgently. “This is no time to be afraid of the dark. Help me, please. I’ve bumped into something-a bust and its stand, I think-and I daren’t let go of them until I can see how to set them upright. There are draperies over here, right in front of me. All you have to do is follow my voice and open them. Once we do, ‘twill be bright as day in here.”
“I’m coming, milady,” Berta said bravely, and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve found them!” Berta cried softly a few minutes later. “They’re heavy-velvet they are, with another panel behind them.” Berta pulled one heavy panel back across the wall, and then, with renewed urgency and vigor, she yanked back the other and turned around to survey the room.
“Light as last!” Elizabeth said with relief. Dazzling late-afternoon sunlight poured into the windows directly in front of her, blinding her momentarily. “That’s much better,” she said, blinking. Satisfied that the pillar was quite sturdy enough to stand without her aid, Elizabeth was about to place the bust back upon it, but Berta’s cry stopped her.
“Saints preserve us!”
With the fragile bust clutched protectively to her chest Elizabeth swung sharply around. There, spread out before her, furnished entirely in red and gold, was the most shocking room Elizabeth had ever beheld: Six enormous gold cupids seemed to hover in thin air above a gigantic bed clutching crimson velvet bed draperies in one pudgy fist and holding bows and arrows in the other; more cupids adorned the headboard. Elizabeth’s eyes widened, first in disbelief, and a moment later in mirth. “Berta,” she breathed on a smothered giggle, “will you look at this place!”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Almost Heaven
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