41
" The voice welling up out of this little man is terrific, Harry had noticed it at the house, but here, in the nearly empty church, echoing off the walnut knobs and memorial plaques and high arched rafters, beneath the tall central window of Jesus taking off into the sky with a pack of pastel apostles for a launching pad, the timbre is doubled, richer, with a rounded sorrowful something Rabbit hadn't noticed hitherto, gathering and pressing the straggle of guests into a congregation, subduing any fear that this ceremony might be a farce. Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken. "
― John Updike , Rabbit Is Rich (Rabbit Angstrom, #3)
46
" I remember at that time I went to the hairdresser's. I did this regularly, but I remember that visit for two particular reasons. The first was that next to me was a young mother with a little girl aged about three. The child, whose hair was about to be cut for the first time, screamed with terror and clung to her mother. The hairdresser stood by gravely, comb in hand: he recognised that this was a serious moment. The mother, blushing, tried to comfort the child who had suddenly plunged into despair; all around the shop women smiled in sympathy. What impressed me, and what I particularly remember, was the child's passionate attempt to re-enter her mother, the arms locked around the woman's neck, the terrified cries of unending love. So dangerous is it to be so close! I had tears in my eyes, witnessing that bond, seeing that closeness, of which only a sorrowful memory remained in my own life. One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilised, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately. "
― Anita Brookner , Brief Lives
48
" He shook hands. With greening faces, with eyes full of sparks, his two friends leaned upon their canes. One had on a crushed bowler (why?)... Both were weary. Both knew that what was approaching was the end. Both had spent the day in their offices and when they interrupted their work with an indiscreet nod, when they turned the conversation toward that end, both broke in " Lord, we have strayed from our business." And ever deeper sunk their eyes, a deathly shadow was descending. The words of his friends had been bought with blood, but they were stolen. Someone, listening, recorded them on a phonograph and thousands of cylinders began to twang. A new enterprise opened, on sale a bronze throat, a screaming cavity; an experienced mechanic installed the throat phonograph. The purchased throat squealed day and night and his friends grew exhausted and one day he said to them both " Lord, I am going." He grinned. And they grinned: they understood everything. Now they stood on the platform, stood with him and saw him off. Someone long and dark with the face of an ox, shoulders crooked as a sorrowful cemetery cross and wrapped up in a frock-coat, swept into the coach. And then the bell rang, and then they waved their bowlers; three wooden arms swung in the air.(" Adam" ) "
