Home > Author > Kevin Barry
61 " The men sit restlessly on the bench. They are at a high vantage atop the stack of their years. They are old enough for the long view in either direction now. "
― Kevin Barry , Night Boat to Tangier
62 " sensationally bad idea. "
63 " It’s poverty, Charlie says. Poverty is always for free. "
64 " as Seamus was not himself hideous, he felt he might have a chance in forgiving light. All he had to do was string out the few words right in his mouth. "
― Kevin Barry , That Old Country Music
65 " Charlie Redmond? This man here? The only man I ever "
66 " These were fabled people. These were tricky times. They were in a moment of dangerous splendour. The men were lizardly, reptilian. They wore excellent fucking shoes. "
67 " We are all terrified, John. There is no mystery to it. If you weren't terrified, there would be something wrong with you...I'll tell you what matters. How you hold yourself is what fucken matters. "
― Kevin Barry , Beatlebone
68 " Out here, it was as if the world had backed off from them for a spell. They believed in fatedness and and meant-to-be's. They believed in the dark star that was theirs to steer by. "
69 " You know what I get to wondering, Maurice? Tell me, Charlie. About death, Moss. Here we go. Is it as raw a deal as they make it out to be? Come again? "
70 " Now breathe, and step out again, a step further from the past. Step into the streets as narrow as bones, the white streets of the labyrinth, and breathe deeply. Breathe, and step out once more. "
71 " Did you ever get a whistling-type pain out the left lung, Mr. Redmond? Is it one of those sinister-type pains that you’ve never had before, Mr. Hearne? ’Tis, yeah. Give it time, it’ll be like an old pal to you. Maurice leans in to his friend, and he speaks with fear and very quietly now. I’m fifty-one years to fucken Jesus, Charlie. "
72 " On the larches (primly erect, arrogant as surgeons) that lined the avenue to the Psychiatric the buds were rudely swollen—he couldn't—he couldn't take his eyes off them, hey were like fucken nipples. It's tricky, always, when the world is coming to life again. "
73 " He said, Remick, I could say things to you in the night that you would never fucking recover from. They lived together for a while in the district of Gràcia. They drank too much and too late. They fought with venom and skill. They smoked rock cocaine. They fought like drunk gorillas. "
74 " Outside the internet café a gypsy kid and his girl sold punnets of chestnuts from a roasting cart and kissed. They looked like the year 1583. The air was dark blue and had the smoke of old poetry at dusklight. "
75 " and fucked and ranted. He slept little by night. He was living in the amalgam place of a dream. Cities turned into other cities; streets turned into distant streets. Karima’s kisses tasted of oil and smoke. "
76 " The port by night had a hot, diabolic quality. It rang of the past but was of the new century. On such a clear night you could see an hour south to the lamps of Tangier. "
77 " rabid tush patrol "
― Kevin Barry , City of Bohane
78 " wisps of steam like spectral maggots rose from their damp coats in the inn's fuggyheat "
79 " Fucking Ireland. Its smiling fiends. Its speaking rocks. Its haunted fields. Its sea memory. Its wildness and strife. Its haunt of melancholy. The way that it closes in. "
80 " Even as a kid, in the stroller, he was tuned to odd frequencies, it seemed. "