Home > Author > Glenn Haybittle
41 " I’m always left with such a barren idea of myself if I let an opportunity pass. I get home and I feel like yesterday’s dirty plates, smeared in dried sauce and grease. I have this idea that it’s the women we don’t sleep with who haunt us. They become like a missing page in our book. The part of the story we’ll never know. "
― Glenn Haybittle , The Way Back to Florence
42 " Boyhood still often seems the time he was most real to himself and most wise, as if every habit acquired since is merely fancy dress. "
― Glenn Haybittle , The War in Venice
43 " Sometimes you begin something believing it will soon be over but discover it carries on under its own steam. Perhaps there's some mysterious untouchable law that dictates the length of everything. "
― Glenn Haybittle , In the Warsaw Ghetto
44 " Did you know the English wouldn’t dream of putting olive oil on food? They use it for ear infections. Freddie told me.” "Yes, I’ve heard their cuisine hasn’t evolved since the Middle Ages. "
45 " The key to understanding every story is to find yourself in it. "
46 " Do you know what the most secret stubbornly-defended part of our identity is? It’s the private concessions we make to our cowardice. "
― Glenn Haybittle , The Tree House
47 " Italian as a language, she thinks, suits children with its singsong cadences and rising lingering inflections, its quick swinging gait and easy adaptability to argument, to passionate outbursts. "
― Glenn Haybittle , The Memory Tree
48 " On the brightening air drifts a scent of refreshed stone, moistened soil. She feels the earthy fingerprint of the cold morning air spread over her skin as if she is in the act of undressing. Her body has an early morning weightlessness about it. She might almost be a memory of herself. Conjured up by the sleeping city. "
49 " Father love is ancient and austere, like mountains. It is difficult to accept the collapsing of a mountain. "
50 " Often of late she has accused herself of being a hard woman. As if she will not suffer her soil to be raw and tender, will not submit to the vulnerability of the new green shoot. "
51 " The painting you saw in your mind was beautiful when it was your secret. Once it’s on the canvas it’s as if someone else has got hold of your secret and sullied it, distorted it. "
52 " Memories are like the heart; you mustn’t ask too much of them. Just let them get on quietly with their schooling. "
53 " She inhales the peppery warm breath of the cypresses. She loves their scent. It’s a scent that seems to make moments memories even before they’ve stopped happening. "
54 " The sight of Florence below, the cluster of churches and towers and palaces tiered up on either side of the river, is as familiar as his own hand, as surreal as any nightmare. The setting of many of the most intimate and heartening moments of his life. Taunting him now with a spell of inaccessibility. Since the advent of war many things have happened to him that he could not possibly have imagined. He wonders if this is one of the subliminal reasons men wage war. To increase the daily frequency of surprise and shock. The forerunners of revelation. "
55 " When he turns inland he sees two moving white columns in the sky. At first glance he thinks they are emissions of smoke. The two encroaching formations ripple into funnels and then spread out beneath the labyrinthine coral of clouds into fans. His vision blurs for a moment. Then he realises he is witnessing two perfectly synchronised flocks of birds. The abstract shapes they form are flawless. He stands with his hands in his pockets as the birds taper into a long undulating line, which gently vanishes behind the surface of things. The same thing has happened to his father. He has vanished behind the surface of things. "
56 " The Nazis were good at creating hatred. And when you hate you feel a need to triumph. That triumph Hitler knew for a while but it was always denied to me. "
57 " Children don’t expect words to be used to create false trails. Words to Esme are plain and simple with no hidden codes, no duplicitous underlife. He thinks of the conversations with his wife and how little of what they said was without encryption. "
58 " Kindness is probably the most underrated human quality. We tend to dismiss it when we come across it and seek out more exciting character traits. But kindness is often a refined form of courage. It brings light and warmth into the world. You should always value kindness when you find it. "
59 " Nothing makes a person more untrustworthy than to be motivated primarily by fear. "
60 " Hiding compels a heightened intimacy with oneself. "