‘“An orange!” said Sophia contemptuously. “Do you think people care about oranges when they‘re talking about God and the Devil?” Grandmother poked the cow dung off her shoe with her walking stick as best she could.
“My dear child,” she said, “with the best will in the world I cannot start believing in the Devil at my age. You can believe what you like, but you must learn to be tolerant.”‘

‘And all this, she thought, is only momentary, is only a fragment in time that will never come again, for yesterday already belongs to the past and is ours no longer, and tomorrow is an unknown thing that may be hostile. This is our day, our moment, the sun belongs to us, and the wind, and the sea, and the men for‘ard there singing on the deck.‘ #finished #reread

‘Places are like people are like sharks: if they stop moving, they die. But everyone has one place that they like to think is never going to change.‘ #finished #reread

‘But perhaps even the most fatuous, banal TV will be viewed in a kindlier light from billions of miles away, reduced to what it is in essence: an imperfect attempt to make a human connection across empty space.‘ #finished

“People in the dark are quite different, aren‘t they?” #finished #reread

‘I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it‘ #finished

‘Now God was no longer in the thunder, or far away in the clouds veiling the peak of the distant mountain range - he was in every male authority figure from priest to judge and king, he was in every woman‘s father, brother and uncle; he was in her husband, so he was at her board and in her bed. Finally, and most important of all, he was in her head.‘ #finished

‘I can‘t do it. The quiet restraint, the lack of discernible needs or desires, the undifferentiated sea of dry-cleaned nothingness, the small sips, the half-smiles, the polite pauses, the autopilot nodding. It feels like we‘re all voluntarily erasing ourselves, as if that‘s the only appropriate thing to do.‘ #nowreading.

‘She believes Marianne lacks ‘warmth‘, by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her‘ #finished

‘They laughed as though no one had ever died, and the seas had never risen, and they went on, until they had no more breath to continue‘ #finished