Home > Work > A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)
121 " Nothing could be kept, he thought, everything ran through one’s fingers like sand or water. Or time. Perhaps nothing should be kept. A monkish thought that he dismissed. "
― Kate Atkinson , A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)
122 " Nancy fell in love with Viola at first sight of her. A coup de foudre, she said, more intense and overwhelming than any form of romantic love. Mother and daughter were each a world to the other, complete and unassailable. "
123 " ...and no man gave you a fur coat without expecting to receive something in return. Except for one's husband, of course, who expected nothing beyond modest gratitude. "
124 " Teddy found himself thinking what a decent human being his father had been, the best of all the family really. The grief caught him unawares. "
125 " Sometimes Teddy wondered if everyone had done well out of the war except for those who had fought in it. "
126 " pointing. She was completely hopeless. "
127 " dystopia, a reliably clean, well-lighted place. "
128 " What a good husband you are," Nancy said afterward, "always taking your wife's side rather than your mother's." "It's the side of reason I am on," Teddy said. "It just so happens that that's where you're always to be found and my mother rarely. "
129 " They were both Filipino and laughed no matter what you said. Were the Philippines really such a happy place or were the carers just happy not to be there? "
130 " The last thing she wanted was people looking for her. No, that wasn't true--the last thing she wanted was people finding her. "
131 " Chivalry requireth that youth should be trained to perform the most laborious and humble offices with cheerfulness and grace. "
132 " From here he could see the farmer's daughter in the yard, feeding the geese. Wasn't there a nursery rhyme in there somewhere? No, he was thinking of the farmer's wife, wasn't he?--cutting off tails with a carving knife. A horrid image. Poor mice, he had thought when he was a boy. Still thought the same now that he was a man. Nursery rhymes were brutal affairs. "
133 " He loved his wife and daughter. It was perhaps a stalwart affection rather than a magnificent obsession, but nonetheless he didn't doubt that if called upon to do so he would sacrifice his own life in a heartbeat for them. And he also knew that there would be no more hankering for something else, something beyond, for the hot slices of colour or the intensity of war or romance. That was all behind him, he had a different kind of duty now, not to himself, not to his country, but to this small knot of a family. "
134 " She wanted to be left alone in peace, to disappear into her own quiet world and meditate upon death. Death. Yes, she could form that blunt, obscene word too. But instead she was the one who was going to have to be kind and strong and say that everything was going to be all right (which it clearly was not) and that she had "come to terms with it. "
135 " Best to avoid morbid thoughts", Ursula counselled, advice that would stand him in good stead for the next three years. For the rest of his life, in fact. "
136 " Across the world millions of lives are altered by the absence of the dead, but three members of Teddy's last crew—Clifford the bomb-aimer, Fraser, the injured pilot, and Charlie, the tail-end Charlie—all bail out successfully from F-Fox and see out the rest of the war in a POW camp. On their return they all marry and have children, fractals of the future. "
137 " She fed him scraps from her ragbag because words were all that were left now. Perhaps he could use them to pay the ferryman. Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold. The world is charged with the grandeur of God. Full fathom five thy father lies. Little lamb, who made thee? Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie. On that best portion of a good man's life, his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love. Farther and farther, all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.The air rippled and shimmered. Time narrowed to a pinpoint. It was about to happen. Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. "
138 " Was there a poet who hadn't written about skylarks? "
139 " What a good husband you are,' Nancy said afterward, 'always taking your wife's side rather than your mother's.' 'It's the side of reason I am on,' Teddy said. 'It just so happens that that's where you're always to be found and my mother rarely. "
140 " He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future. "