Quotations (26)

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"It came to Daffy then, how easily the worst in oneself could rise up and strike a blow. How even the most enlightened man had little power over his own darkness."
Author also wrote "The Room 2010" and received a PhD in English from Girton College, Cambridge. Saw about 30 quotes at goodreads and gathered many more below independently, Bet dollars to buttons there are a few everyone likes to chew…
Poor was when bits of your bare body hung through holes in your clothes. Poor was a pinch of tea brewed over and over for weeks till it was the colour of water. === Her voice sagged like an old mattress. === Ambition was an itch in Mary's…
'Mother,' repeated Mary faintly. But the salt-blue eyes looked right through her. 'You have no mother now.' === Gradually it came to her that the night only began when the decent folk barred their doors. There was a whole other festivity…
there was no trade like a Miss's. It required no training, capital, nor premises, and the supply of customers would never run out till the end of the world. 'I defy you,' she would slur, 'I defy you to name me any other trade so…
'They ever told you about the Magdalen in that school of yours? Mary the Magdalen?' The girl thought she remembered the name. 'Well, she were a whore, and she did all right in the end, didn't she?' === from the pristine pavements of the…
When they were served collops of beef, that first afternoon, Mary's plate held as much as her whole family would have dined on, back on Charing Cross Road. === Ribbon gold, ribbon brown What goes up must fall down Ribbon brown, ribbon rose…
Never give up your liberty. How grand it sounded. === It wasn't the meagre wages that kept her going, but the satisfaction of the stitching itself. It was a most peculiar thing. === I've worked my way up to Presidor of my ward. That's like…
The seeds may be planted, my dear, but it's not yet harvest-time.' === Mary hurried on, past the night-soil men, who wheeled their foetid barrows with blank faces. Maybe, she thought, in time you grew accustomed to your toil, whatever it…
Mrs. Jones sucked in her breath with pleasure. Her cheeks were the faint tinge of apple-flesh. At times like this, the decades fell away and he caught sight of her old unobtrusive loveliness. As if her hoity friend Susan had ever been a…
The world was changing, Mary was confident of that much; already it was not the same one as her mother had grown up in. But in a backwater like Monmouth they'd clearly never heard about the changes, and wouldn't believe in them even if…
And for the next hour she explained the difference between a fitted casaquin and a caraco like this one, and a pentelair which was really a cross between a jacket and a sack gown but shorter, and a palatine and a mantelet and a cardinal,…
And in the Scriptures—troubling and enigmatic as they could be, at times—she had learned to see a pattern. For all the days of this life the evil might triumph over the good, but in the end the sinners would be cast down and the clean…
'One day, when you're reduced in your circumstances, you'll regret your uncharitable talk.' Mary regretted it a little already. Sometimes words were like glass that broke in her mouth. === 'Better a crust with a quiet conscience than two…
Light was a clear badge of rank, she'd learned. The Joneses could stay up a little later than most of their neighbours on Inch Lane, live a little more of each day, not let the darkness drag them down quite so soon. Below in the town, in…
'What if you'd married Ned Jones the baker, madam?' asked the girl in a sly murmur. 'Ah, what indeed?' Mrs. Jones gave the girl's arm a little shove with the heel of her hand. 'I wouldn't be this Mrs. Jones, would I? Up to my eyebrows in…
'A friend of mine,' Mary remarked, 'used to say, Never give up your liberty.' Abi brooded over the phrase. 'You know what liberty means? Belonging to yourself?' 'Never had that,' said Abi finally. 'You must have,' said Mary a little…
Everything was just around the corner in this town. === thought you knew him?' 'I do, Mary; that's why it's hard to sum him up in a phrase. Poor Joe,' === 'The whiff of loneliness comes off him like ... onion.' === A smile flashed, quick…
The Skyrrid soil in the bag was damp. He scattered a handful on the coffin in the open grave, so his poor mistress would rest easy. Not all of it, mind; he saved a good sprinkle, in case his cough came back this winter. === 'Some float…
Heaven knew, he was grateful for her. But a daughter, no matter how devoted to her parents, was only theirs for a time; she would marry into another family and bear children with another name. Was it presumptuous to long also for one…
Abi didn't attend the funeral. When Rhona Davies had arrived to measure the family for mourning weeds, Abi had stayed in her room and wouldn't come down. So now she watched the procession from the attic window. === A few coins were dull,…
The gravediggers stood by the door for spade money. The mourners, filing out, gave more than they could afford, as a mark of respect. === 'Aren't we all servants, one way or another, Mary?' pleaded her mistress. The girl put her hands down…
He took a mouthful of the dry bread and washed it down with beer. Mr. Jones tossed him a sixpence; Dai picked it out of the mud. Then they all moved in to spit at him, and he pushed through the knotted crowd and shambled away. 'All my…
Finally Mary was coming to understand why the crows cried so unceasingly: to prove they were here. === Mary knew now that death moved through the crowd wearing the face of an ordinary stranger, and tapped you on the shoulder with no…
'When you weep,' he prompted, 'is it with true regret, or merely pity for yourself?' === 'Gentlemen, what if she were to be hanged first, and then burnt?' Judicious nods all round. === Pain ran across the man's face like a lizard. === Our…