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81 " that lacking her he’d be sucking his thumbs in a locked room. Marriage, Charlie says. Beautiful and cruel. "
― Kevin Barry , Night Boat to Tangier
82 " for a moment, descends all the way through him. This is not a rare occurrence. He will never lose the feeling of the love that they had together, or the nausea of its absence. "
83 " Vivien approached her husband, and embraced him, and planted a light kiss on his neck as they held each other against the darkness. Then she bit him on the neck. Blood came in great, angry spurts. I vomited, briefly, and decided to put on some music. "
― Kevin Barry , Dark Lies the Island
84 " Charlie Redmond drank alone, but for his demons, at a crowded table at the back. "
85 " Whatever it is that you’re most scared of surfacing in your work, you can be sure that it’s nearby. "
― Kevin Barry , Beatlebone
86 " As a ten-year-old, what I seemed to find most distressing about the fact of a recently dead mother was the seeming mawkishness of having to admit to one. "
87 " There is no such thing as forgiveness. Everything has a consequence. Would you believe that? Years later, you’ll still have to answer the question: was the right thing done? "
― Kevin Barry , There are Little Kingdoms
88 " The train scooted along the fried coast. We made solid headway into the Marston's. Mo was down a testicle since the spring. We'd called in at the Royal the night of his operation. We'd stopped at the Ship and Mitre on the way—they'd a handsome bitter from Clitheroe on guest tap. We needed the fortification: when Real Ale Club boys parade down hospital wards, we tend to draw worried glances from the whitecoats. We are shaped like those chaps in the warning illustrations on cardiac charts. We gathered around Mo and breathed a nice fog of bitter over the lad and we joshed him gently.“Sounding a little high-pitched, Mo?”“Other lad's going to be worked overtime.”“Diseased bugger you'll want in a glass jar, Mo. One for the mantelpiece.”Love is a strong word, but. We were family to Mo when he was up the Royal having the bollock out. We passed Flint Castle and Everett Bell piped up. "
― Kevin Barry ,
89 " The past shifted and rearranged itself. He could not step out from its reach. The past was fluid in the moment. "
90 " I am not in control, Cornelius, of the way my fucking brain turns. You know where I’m at sometimes? Just by way of hysterical fucking example? I’m in nineteen twenty fucking dot. I’m in the Bluecoat orphanage. How fucking cruel and how fucking lonely? To lie awake at night in the middle of the city. No brothers here, no sisters. A kid awake in the city and lonely. It’s the winter and deep in. This gimpy fucking kid in the corner bed. This snot-faced raggedy limpy kid. The best part of you’s dripped down your dad’s leg, hasn’t it, Freddie?Ah JohnAnd I will not wipe these tears away. My old man? He was like me without the spark plug in. I could have been a fucking disaster as easy. It’s like aunt always said – I’m just the idiot that got lucky.Can you not go easy on yourself the one time, John?No I fucking cannot. "
91 " But no harm sometimes to have a bit of arrogance in yourself. "
92 " They settled into it together. They arranged the laptop on a chair between the two beds and she sat back on the edge of Maurice’s and they watched Rumble Fish again. In my humble and honest? Maurice said. We could be looking at Francis Ford Coppola’s finest hour. "
93 " It is the moment itself that contains all riches. "
94 " The past is uncertain, mobile. It shifts and rearranges back there. All might turn and change back there yet. "
95 " But now, in Donegal, in the clear light of summer, I was somehow making amends with myself. "
― Kevin Barry , That Old Country Music
96 " Whatever’s wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that river. This is the Bohane river we’re talking about. A blackwater surge, malevolent, it roars in off the Big Nothin’ wastes and the city was pawned by it and was named for it: city of Bohane.He walked the docks and breathed in the sweet badness of the river. It was past midnight on the Bohane front. There was an evenness to hisfootfall, a slow calm rhythm of leather on stone, and the dockside lamps burned in the night-time a green haze, the light of a sad dream. The water’s roar for Hartnett was as the rushing of his own blood andas he passed the merchant yards the guard dogs strung out a sequence of howls all along the front. See the dogs: their hackles heaped, their yellow eyes livid. We could tell he was coming by the howling of the dogs. "
― Kevin Barry , City of Bohane
97 " The Canavans - they had for decades and centuries brought to the Ox elements that were by turn very complicated and very simple: occult nous and racy semen. "
98 " The Bohane all the while ferried a drag of gravel and stones and the drag swirled drunkenly deep down – it had the sound of chains being swung. "
99 " What’s the latest, John? As a matter of fact, Cornelius, I think I’ve come loose of my fucking bean completely. No wonder. The wind is after shifting east. There’s none of us right when the wind shifts east. But I’m having vision-type fucking things, Cornelius! It would surprise me if you weren’t. "
100 " The clock considered twelve and passed it by with a soft shudder, as though it had been a close call. It seemed to be a fine enough day, out there beyond the blinds. Birds in the trees and flowers in the park and the first bit of warmth of the year. The torpid movement of late morning in the town, and the sunlight harsh in its vitality, as if it was only here to show the place up. "