“Breeze sighed. ‘Murder and suicide during a drinking spree. The secretary went haywire and shot young Cassidy. I read it in the papers or something. Is that what you want me to say?’ ‘You read it in the papers,’ I said, ‘but it wasn’t so. What’s more you knew it wasn’t so and the D.A. […]
“‘I can see,’ Miss Emily said, ‘that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in […]
“One big idea behind finding your model was that when you did, you’d glimpse your future. Now I don’t mean anyone really thought that if your model turned out to be, say, a guy working at a railway station, that’s what you’d end up doing too. We all realised it wasn’t that simple. Nevertheless, we […]
“Thinking back now, I can see we were just at that age when we knew a few things about ourselves––about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the people outside––but hadn’t yet understood what any of it meant. I’m sure somewhere in your childhood, you too had an experience like ours […]
“‘I know things, and feel things, but the wrong way round. That’s me: all the right answers at none of the right times. I see and can’t understand. I need to adjust my spectrum, pull myself away from the blue end. I could do with a red shift. Galaxies and Rectors have them. Why not […]
“‘You know what Crewe is?’ said Tom. ‘Ultimate reality. That’s why we can’t touch it. Each of these shops is full of every aspect of one part of existence. Woolworth’s is a tool shed; Boots, a bathroom; the British Home Stores, a wardrobe. And we walk through it all, but we can’t clean our teeth, […]
“They moved from shop to shop, resting for as long as they were unnoticed, until they found a crowded Bingo room, so busy and full of smoke that they were able to sit in peace. They watched whole families ranged intent on their illuminated panels, while prams and children rolled about the floor. ‘Parents’ Day […]
“Probably the smart thing to say is, if you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers––not […]
“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in parentheses.” ––The Cider House Rules, by John Irving, pg. 429
“‘The reasons orphans should be adopted before adolescence is that they should be loved, and have someone to love, before they embark on that necessary phase of adolescence: namely deceitfulness,’ Larch argued in the letter. ‘A teen-ager discovers that deceit is almost as seductive as sex, and much more easily accomplished. It may be especially […]