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141 " One of these men told me at a book festival that if he did not transgress too many boundaries in his marriage, there would always be a comforting pair of slippers warming for him by the fire...Will there ever be a comforting pair of slippers (pink, feathered) warming for me by the egg-shaped fireplace? Not unless I became a female character in a vintage Hollywood movie and paid a housekeeper to put them there. "
― Deborah Levy , Real Estate
142 " I had broken the rules of exchange. She had given and I had taken, but I had not reciprocated. A gift like love is never free. "
― Deborah Levy , Hot Milk
143 " In Western European realist fiction, what is a writer going to do (we wondered out loud) with the irrational, with synchronicities, with superstition and the private magic we invent to keep us out of harm’s way, with the uncanny, with thought streams and digressions that contradict our attempt to fix the story? "
144 " Mother was The Woman the whole world had imagined to death. It proved very hard to re-negotiate the world's nostalgic phantasy about our purpose in life...we did not yet entirely understand that Mother, as imagined and politicized by the societal system, was a delusion. "
― Deborah Levy , Things I Don't Want to Know
145 " Julieta looks at me, and then she laughs. ‘Your boundaries are made from sand, Sofia.’ ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know that. "
146 " My mother’s words are my mirror. My laptop is my veil of shame. I hide in it all the time. "
147 " Kitty stared at the sky smashing against the mountains. "
― Deborah Levy , Swimming Home
148 " He glanced drowsily at Laura and Mitchell eating their strawberries in the sunshine and found himself about to fall asleep. It was an odd sensation, 'to find himself' about to fall into sleep. As if he could find himself anywhere at any time. "
149 " She was not ready to go home and start imitating someone she used to be. "
150 " To do the things she had chosen to do in the world, she risked forfeiting her place as a wife and mother, a bewildering place haunted by all that had been imagined for her if she chose to sit in it. "
151 " Sometimes I would sprinkle sea salt on a wedge sour green tomato and dip it into the peppery emerald olive oil. It was as if I had struck on something good that was within my reach. "
152 " Time has shattered, it’s cracking like my lips. "
153 " I realized my mother had charm and verve. If I blew on her name, ROSE, the letters would shuffle around and come out as EROS, the god of love, winged but lame. "
154 " I felt at ease with myself, which must have meant that she did not regard me as strange and so I had no reason to imitate someone who was less strange and had been saved from doing the chameleon thing. "
155 " If I see myself as an unwilling detective with a desire for justice, does that make her illness an unsolved crime? If so, who is the villain and who is the victim? Attempting to decipher her aches and pains, their triggers "
156 " It was hard to accept that the first man in my life would do things that were to my disadvantage if they were to his advantage. Yet it was a revelation that somehow set me free. "
157 " Bengali philosopher, poet and composer Rabindranath Tagore: It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. "
158 " Her narrow silhouette and the nuggets of antique silver on her wrists fascinate and perturb him. But the little girl?He'd show the princess the back of his hand and make her yelp. The Inspector's shoes press angrily into the gravel path as he walks to his car. "
― Deborah Levy
159 " Rose rested her pink eyes on my eyes. I removed my gaze like a traitor. "
160 " A female writer cannot afford to feel her life too clearly. If she does, she will write in a rage when she should write calmly. "