Joanne Harris

“Le isole sono diverse. E se l'isola è piccola è ancora più vero. Guardate l'Inghilterra, è quasi inconcepibile che questa stretta distesa di terra sorregga tanta diversità: il cricket, il tè alla panna, Shakespeare, Sheffield, il fish and chips nel giornale imbevuto d'aceto, Soho, Oxford e Cambridge, il lungomare di Southend, le sedie a sdraio con le righe a Green Park, i Beatles e i Rolling Stone, Oxford Street, i pigri pomeriggi domenicali. Tutte contraddizioni, che marciano tutte insieme come dimostranti ubriachi che non si sono ancora resi conto che la principale causa di protesta sono proprio loro. Le isole sono pionieri, gruppi divisi, malcontento, pesci fuor d'acqua, isolazionisti naturali. Come ho detto, diverse.Quest'isola, per esempio. Da un capo all'altro soltanto una corsa in bicicletta. Un uomo che camminasse sull'acqua riuscirebbe a raggiungere la costa in un pomeriggio. L'isola di Le Devin, uno dei molti isolotti intrappolati come granchi nelle secche lungo il litorale della Vandea, oscurata da Noirmoutier dal lato prospiciente la costa, dall'Ile d'Yen a sud; in una giornata nebbiosa si potrebbe non notarla affatto. Le carte la citano a malapena. In effetti non merita quasi lo status di isola, essendo poco più che un grappolo di banchi di sabbia con qualche pretesa, una dorsale rocciosa che la solleva dall'Atlantico, un paio di villaggi, un piccolo stabilimento dove mettono il pesce in scatola, un'unica spiaggia. Al capo estremo, casa mia, Les Salants, una fila di casette, appena sufficienti per chiamarlo paese, distribuite fra rocce e dune verso un mare che guadagna terreno a ogni brutta marea. Casa, il posto da cui non si può fuggire, il posto verso cui ruota la bussola del cuore.”

“A man may plant a tree for a number of reasons. Perhaps he likes trees. Perhaps he wants shelter. Or perhaps he knows that someday he may need the firewood.”

“But I rather thought--I mean, I heard you'd killed Balder the Fair.""I never did," snapped Loki crossly. "Well, no one ever proved I did. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Besides, he was supposed to be invulnerable. Was it my fault that he wasn't?”

“You seem to know a lot about it," she said. "And you do subtleties.""Yeah. Like I've always wanted to destroy the Nine Worlds while committing suicide.""Well, there's no need to be rude," protested Sif.”

“Our lives are like these things I make. Turn 'em, build 'em, bake 'em in fire. That's what you've been, son. Baked and fired. But a pot don't have the right to choose whether he be for water, wine, or just left empty. You have, son. You have.”

“Was it my fault that I got out of hand?--Loki”

“Library-denigrators, pay heed: suggesting that the Internet is a viable substitute for libraries is like saying porn could replace your wife.”

“Divination is a means of telling ourselves what we already know.”

“he is the kind of man who breakes biscuits in two and saves the other half for later”

“If wishes were horses, beggers would ride”

“That's Catholicism for you. A perpetual war between repression and excess.”

“Fiction is a tower of glass built from a million tiny truths, grains of sand fused together to make a single, gleaming lie.”

“There's something very comforting about the ritual of jam-making. It speaks of cellars filled with preserves; of neat rows of jars on pantry shelves. It speaks of winter mornings and bowls of chocolat au lait, with thick slices of good fresh bread and last year's peach jam, like a promise of sunshine at the darkest point of the year. It speaks of four stone walls, a roof, and of seasons that turn in the same place, in the same way, year after year, with sweet familiarity. It is the taste of home.”

“All those moments, those memories. Everything that we are, compressed in just two or three kilos of paper — the weight of a human heart.”

“More. Oh that word. That deceptive word. That eater of lives; that malcontent.”

“L'ho lasciata fare. Non ho detto che sarebbe andato tutto bene. Non ho fatto lo sforzo di consolarla. A volte è meglio lasciare le cose come sono, lasciare che il dolore faccia il suo corso.”

“«Cominci a scappare e sarai in fuga per sempre»”

“«Non penso che esista una cosa come un buon o un cattivo cristiano», gli ho detto. «Ci sono solo persone buone o cattive».”

“Il vento di marzo è un vento malato, diceva sempre mia madre. Eppure è piacevole, odora di linfa e ozono e del sale di mari lontani. Un buon mese, marzo, con febbraio che vola via dalla porta sul retro e la primavera che aspetta a quella principale. Un buon mese per un cambiamento.”

“Le cose proibite hanno sempre il gusto migliore.”

“Ho provato una pena improvvisa per mia figlia, che si immagina amici invisibili per popolare lo spazio che la circonda. Egoista pensare che una madre possa riempire completamente quello spazio. Egoista e cieca.”

“But if you could travel back through Time, and find yourself as you used to be, wouldn't you try, just once at least, to give her some kind of warning? Wouldn't you want to make things right?”

“I've never been very good at leaving things behind. I tried, but I have always left fragments of myself there too, like seeds awaiting their chance to grow.”

“Some people spend the whole of their lives sitting waiting for one train, only to find that they never even made it to the station.”

“And so Nat stood up and joined the group, and followed, and watched, and awaited his chance as the light of Chaos lit the plain and gods and demons marched to war.”

“Felicità. Semplice come un bicchiere di cioccolata o tortuosa come il cuore. Amara. Dolce. Viva.”

“Voglio dare, voglio fare felici le persone, di certo non può far male.”

“Non ci sono demoni ma una serie di archetipi comuni a ogni civiltà.”

“Gli aromi di cioccolata, di vaniglia, del rame scaldato e della cannella che si uniscono danno alla testa, sono molto invitanti.”

“C'è un fascino indescrivibile nel maneggiare anonimi blocchi di copertura grezza, nel grattugiarli a mano nei grandi paioli di ceramica - non uso mai il miscelatore elettrico - e dopo nel sciogliere, mescolare, provare ogni mossa accurata con il termometro per lo zucchero fino a quando si raggiunge la giusta gradazione di calore per ottenere la trasformazione.”

“C'è un alone di stregoneria in tutta la cucina; la scelta degli ingredienti, il modo in cui vengono mescolati, grattugiati, sciolti, le infusioni e come si insaporiscono, le ricette prese da vecchi libri, gli utensili tradizionali”

“un'alchimista casalinga, che fa magie caserecce”

“Vendo sogni, piccoli comfort, tentazioni dolci e innocue.”

“I know you,” said Maddy. “You’re -““What’s a name?” Loki grinned. “Wear it like a coat; turn it, burn it, throw it aside, and borrow another. One-Eye knows; you should ask him.”“But Loki died,” she said, shaking her head. “He died on the field at Ragnarok.”“Not quite.” He pulled a face. “You know there’s rather a lot the Oracle didn’t foretell, and old tales have a habit of getting twisted.”“But in any case, that was centuries ago,” Maddy said bewildered. “I mean - that was the End of the World, wasn’t it?”“So?” said Loki impatiently. “This isn’t the first time the world has come to an end, and it won’t be the last either.”

“Anos de viagens com a minha mãe ensinaram-se que a comida é o passaporte universal. Quaisquer que sejam as barreiras de lingua, cultura ou geografia, a comida atravessa todas as fronteiras.”

“Gods? Don't let that impress you. Anyone can be a god if they have enough worshippers. You don't even have to have powers anymore. In my time I've seen theatre gods, gladiator gods, even storyteller gods - you people see gods everywhere. Gives you an excuse for not thinking for yourselves.God is just a word. Like Fury. like demon, Just words people use for things they don't understand. Reverse it and you get dog. It's just as appropriate.”

“Why can no one here think of anything but chocolates?”

“There's no such thing as a trivial thing. Everything costs; it all adds up until finally the balance shifts and we're gone again, back on the road, telling ourselves - well maybe next time”

“The battle of good and evil reduced to a fat woman standing in front of a chocolate shop, saying, Will I? Won’t I? in pitiful indecision.”

“I've never viewed you as an enemy, more an adversary...”

“You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.”

“He drank, for the same reason he wrote second-rate science fiction. Not to forget but to remember, to open the past and find himself there again. He opened each bottle, began each story with the secret conviction that here was the magic drought that would restore him. But magic, like wine, needs the right conditions in order to work.”

“Places do not lose their identity, however far one travels. It is the heart that begins to erode over time. The face in the hotel mirror seems blurred some mornings, as if by too many casual looks. By ten the sheets will be laundered, the carpet swept. The names on the hotel registers change as we pass. We leave no trace as we pass on. Ghostlike, we cast no shadow.”

“There was a quote he could not quite remember, something about the past being an island surrounded by time. He had missed the last boat to the island.”

“And yet I could still hear them. As if some part of their essence had evaporated into the air, become a part of this place, ingrained, like the scent of cigarettes and burning sugar, in the woodwork and plaster. Everything was buzzing with that vanished presence, buzzing and singing and laughing louder than ever before, stone and tile and polished wood, all whispering with agitation and excitement; never still, never silent.”

“Too much balast slows you down.”

“Their love was something which coloured the air between them like sunlight.”

“All right, Monsieur Jay,' she said, smiling. 'I'll tell them you're OK.”

“Garden work clears the mind.”

“You may be a foreigner, but you have the heart of a Frenchman.”