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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand QUOTES

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand QUOTES

1 " ...as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

2 " We are all small-minded people, creeping about the earth grubbing for our own advantage and making the very mistakes for which we want to humiliate our neighbors. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

3 " The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,' said the Major. 'A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

4 " He cursed himself for having assumed the weather would be sunny. Perhaps it was the result of evolution, he thought--some adaptive gene that allowed the English to go on making blithe outdoor plans in the face of almost certain rain. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

5 " He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time at avoiding ridicule. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

6 " ...I tell myself it does not matter what one reads--favorite authors, particular themes--as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

7 " You Anglo-Saxons have largely broken away from such dependence on family. Each generation feels perfectly free to act alone and you are not afraid. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

8 " But it's not enough to be in love. It's about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it's what work you do ... Better to break both our hearts now than watch them wither away over time. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

9 " Despite his attempts to maintain a vigorous structure of errands, golf games, visits, and meetings, there were sometimes days like this one, filled with rain and touched with a gnawing sense of parts missing from life. When the slick mud ran in the flower beds and the clouds smothered the light, he missed his wife. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

10 " Memories were like tomb paintings, thought the Major, the colors still vivid no matter how many layers of mud and sand time deposited. Scrape at them and they come up all red and blazing. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

11 " Look here, it's all very tidy and convenient to see the world in black and white,' said the Major, trying to soften his tone slightly. 'It's a particular passion of young men eager to sweep away their dusty elders.' He stopped to organize his thoughts into some statement short enough for a youthful attention span. 'However, philosophical rigidity is usually combined with a complete lack of education or real-world experience, and it is often augmented with strange haircuts and an aversion to bathing. Not in your case, of course—you are very neat.' Abdul Wahid looked confused, which was an improvement over the frown.

'You are very strange,' he said. 'Are you saying it is wrong, stupid, to try to live a life of faith?'

'No, I think it is admirable,' said the Major. 'But I think a life of faith must start with remembering that humility is the first virtue before God. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

12 " Look, the truth belongs to the guy who's best at sticking to his story,' said Ferguson. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

13 " Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

14 " He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

15 " I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead," she replied, an acid tone in her voice. "Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from Pakistan. In exchange, I will be given houseroom and no doubt, the honor of taking care of several small children of other family members."

The Major was silent. He was at once appalled and also reluctant to hear any more. This was why people usually talked about the weather. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

16 " It was never a good idea to confide in people. They always remembered, and when they came up to you in the street, years later, you could see the information was still firmly attached to your face and present in the way they said your name and the pressure of their hand clasping yours. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

17 " No one really contemplates death when making these life decisions, thought the Major. If they did, what different choices might they make? "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

18 " Life does often get in the way of one's reading. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

19 " You are a wise man, Major, and I will consider your advice with great care—and humility." He finished his tea and rose from the table to go to his room. "But I must ask you, do you really understand what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?"

"My dear boy," said the Major. "Is there really any other kind? "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

20 " It surprised him that his grief was sharper than in the past few days. He had forgotten that grief does not decline in a straight line or along a slow curve like a graph in a child's math book. Instead, it was almost as if his body contained a big pile of garden rubbish full both of heavy lumps of dirt and of sharp thorny brush that would stab him when he least expected it. "

― Helen Simonson , Major Pettigrew's Last Stand