Home > Work > A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)
61 " She had taken an almost instant dislike to him over a dinner at Nopi which, when the bill arrived, he had been more than happy to go Dutch on, thereby failing one of her first requirements of a suitor, which was to behave like a gentleman. She wanted doors opening, meals paid for, flowers. Billets-doux (lovely words, made her think of doves – bill and coo). She wanted to be courted. Gallantry. What a lovely word. "
― Kate Atkinson , A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)
62 " They all chose Indian names for themselves. Teddy was Little Fox (“Naturally,” Ursula said). Nancy was Little Wolf (“Honiahaka” in Cheyenne, Mrs. Shawcross said. She had a book she referred to). Mrs. Shawcross herself was Great White Eagle (“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sylvie said, “talk about hubris”). "
63 " Viola was a good reader, a bookworm—a phrase she hated. “How can a worm be a nice thing to be?” Viola said. I would be a worm, Nancy thought, if that was the only existence on offer, and then laughed at herself for having reached such a pass. “Without worms we wouldn’t be able to grow food and everyone would starve,” Nancy said reasonably. "
64 " The more Viola forgot her mother, the more she missed her. "
65 " Fanning Court. God forbid. Teddy could no longer sit in the chair. He could no longer leave the bed, no longer do anything. He was approaching the end of his twilight, entering into the final darkness. Viola imagined the synapses in her father’s brain flaring and dimming like the slow death of a star. Soon Teddy would burn out completely and implode and become a black hole. Viola was hazy on the subject of astrophysics, but she liked the image. "
66 " There was now and it was followed by another now. If you were lucky. "
67 " eye for an eye,” Mac said at the squadron reunion. Until everyone was blind, Teddy wondered?) "
68 " Oh, how he missed his sister. Out of everyone, the legions of the dead, the numberless infinities of souls who had gone before, it was the loss of Ursula that had left him with the sorest heart. "
69 " She was twenty-eight but already jaded. Twenty-eight seemed a particularly unsatisfactory age. She was no longer young and yet no one ever seemed to take her seriously as an adult. People still told her what to do all the time, it was infuriating. Her only power seemed to be over her own children and even that was limited by endless negotiation. "
70 " [She] went around with a beatific smile on her face that could be very irritating if you yourself weren't feeling beatific. "
71 " In Teddy’s experience people who claimed to be one thing were generally the opposite, "
72 " I have seen a large dog fox several times recently but it was a hot afternoon and no doubt, like most creatures, it was lying low in the shade. The fox has an unfortunate reputation. A crafty thief, often a charming one in fable and fairy story, its name is a byword for low (and occasionally high) cunning. A moral outlaw, a trickster and sometimes downright malevolent. The Christian Church often equated the fox with the devil. In many churches across the land you will find images of the fox in priestly robes preaching to a flock of geese. (There is a fine woodcut in the Cathedral at Ely.) The fox is a subtle outlaw, a devilish predator without conscience, and the geese a flock of innocents … "
73 " If Bertie was a god (a favourite fantasy), she would be manufacturing things there was a shortage of - bees, tigers, dormice - not flip-flops and phone covers and toothpaste. "
74 " It was impossible to instruct on the subject of beauty, of course. It simply was. You were either moved by it or you weren’t. "
75 " The purpose of Art,’ his mother, Sylvie, said – instructed even – ‘is to convey the truth of a thing, not to be the truth itself. "
76 " We’re all primitives underneath, that’s why we had to invent God, to be the voice of our conscience, or we would be killing each other left, right and centre. "
77 " You were very brave,’ Nancy said, with the same encouraging indifference "
78 " (“ ‘Sacrifice,’ ” Sylvie said, “is a word that makes people feel noble about slaughter.”) But, "
79 " sequiturs. ‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ Teddy "
80 " This was beauty too. Was there anything in nature that wasn't? "