Teddy found himself thinking what a decent human being his father had been, the best of all the family really. The grief caught him unawares.
Sometimes I would like to cry. I close my eyes. Why weren't we designed so that we can close our ears as well? (Perhaps because we would never open them.) Is there some way that I could accelerate my...
She remembered holding Pamela’s babies – remembered Teddy and Jimmy, too – how overwhelming the feelings of love and terror, the desperate desire to protect. How much stronger would those feelings be...
Sacrifice,’ he remembered Sylvie saying, is a word that makes people feel noble about slaughter. These
Perhaps we are on an insula ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all -- a backdrop for the stories we must tell.
People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.
Pamela produced placid babies. They don't tend to turn feral until they're two, she said.
Oh, how he missed his sister. Out of everyone, the legions of the dead, the numberless infinities of souls who had gone before, it was the loss of Ursula that had left him with the sorest heart.
Nothing could be kept, he thought, everything ran through one’s fingers like sand or water. Or time. Perhaps nothing should be kept. A monkish thought that he dismissed.
Mrs. Appleyard, in contrast, was thin and sallow and when her husband was out of the apartment Ursula could hear her singing mournfully to herself in a language that she couldn’t place. Something East...
Maybe this was why people filled their house with stinking cats, so they didn't notice that they were alone, so they wouldn't die without a living soul noticing.
Long lazy days like these will never come again in your life. You think they will but they won't.' -Sylvie
Kittens were in continual abundance on the farm, there was a kind of kitten currency in the neighborhood, they were bartered for all kinds of emotional regret or fulfillment by parents - a doll lost,...
Juliet felt slighted yet relieved. It was curious how you could hold two quite opposing feelings at the same time, an unsettling emotional discord. She felt an odd pang at the sight of him. She had be...
It’s the side of reason that I’m on, Teddy said. It just so happens that that’s where you’re always to be found and my mother rarely.
It's funny, isn't it, Miss Woolf whispered in Ursula's ear, how much German music we listen to. Great beauty transcends all. Perhaps after the war it will heal all too.
It was just as well the baby was strapped into his high chair, because every so often he would suddenly fling out his arms and legs and try to launch himself into the air like a suicidal starfish.
It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday.
If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.
If it hadn’t been for this chance hospital encounter, accidental in all senses, Victor might never have courted a girl. He already felt well on his way to middle age, and his social life was still lim...
