Rose Tremain

“Felt astonishment at the idea of that much leisure that much spare cash flying away into bottles and vials.”

“When you’re old nobody touches you nobody listens to you—not in this bloody country.so that’s what I do. I touch and I listen.”

“Human society is ninety percent muck that won't disperse to the appropriate location that’s why I chose the profession of plumber.”

“How could such a picture be in a national newspaper The model had ridiculous breasts the size of pumpkins and lips fat and wet and all that she was wearing was a spangled G-string.”

“He’d never seen a rain quite like this so gentle that it seemed barely to fall yet slowly laid its shine on the bay leaves and hydrangea flowers…”

“The Koran teaches that deeds of unselfish kindness will be rewarded in heaven. I’ve given you precious food and for this unselfishness I will find reward. But now I shall go further. I am going to give you work.”

“HE felt so tired that he felt almost like lying down there where he was in the warm sunshine just waiting until someone showed up but then he thought he did not know long a day was a summer day in England and how soon afternoon and evening would arrive and he didn’t want to find himself on the street when it got dark.”

“My name is Lev," said Lev."My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and Lydia's hand rough with salt and smelling of egg, and then Lev asked, "What are you planning to do in En gland?" and Lydia said, "I have some interviews in London for jobs as a translator.""That sounds promising.""I hope so. I was a teacher of English at School 237 in Yarbl, so my language is very colloquial."Lev looked at Lydia. It wasn't difficult to imagine her standing in front of a class and writing words on a blackboard. He said, "I wonder why you're leaving our country when you had a good job at School 237 in Yarbl?""Well," said Lydia, "I became very tired of the view from my window. Every day, summer and winter, I looked out at the schoolyard and the high fence and the apartment block beyond, and I began to imagine I would die seeing these things, and I didn't want this. I expect you understand what I mean?”

“Lev took out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips and the woman sitting next to him a plump contained person with moles like splashes of mud on her face said quickly "I'm sorry but there is no smoking allowed on this bus." Lev knew this had known it in advance had tried to prepare himself mentally for the long agony of it. But even an unlit cigarette was a companion -something to hold on to something that had promise in it -and all he could be bothered to do now was to nod just to show the woman that he'd heard what she'd said reassure her that he wasn't going to cause trouble because there they would have to sit for fifty hours or more side by side with their separate aches and dreams like a married couple. They would hear each other's snores and sighs smell the food and drink each had brought with them note the degree to which each was fearful or unafraid make short forays into conversation. And then later when they finally arrived in London they would probably separate with barely a word or a look walk out into a rainy morning each alone and beginning a new life. And Lev thought how all of this was odd but necessary and already told him things about the world he was traveling to a world in which he would break his back working -if only that work could be found.”

“The world is packed with mistery. We tend to forget this, but itțs still packed tight with it, like water in stone.”

“There is something about the unexpected that moves us. As if the whole of existance is paid for in some way, except for that one moment, witch is free.”

“She would, on the birthday of Christ, allow herself what she called "an extra helping of prayer." At the time of the Civil War, she would pray for peace. Always, she asked God to spare me and my father. But at Christmas, she talked to God as if He were Clerk of the Acts in the Office of Public Works. She prayed for cleaner air in London. She prayed that our chimneys would not fall over in the January winds; she prayed that our neighbour, Mister Simkins, would attend to his cesspit, so that it would cease its overflow into ours. She prayed that Amos Treefeller would not slip and drown "going down the public steps to the river at Blackfriars, which are much neglected and covered in slime, Lord." And she prayed, of course, that plague would not come.As a child, she allowed me to ask God to grant me things for which my heart longed. I would reply that my heart longed for a pair of skates made of bone or for a kitten from Siam. And we would sit by the fire, the two of us, praying. And then we would eat a lardy cake, which my mother had baked herself, and ever since that time the taste of lardy cake has had about it the taste of prayer.”

“In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.”

“And she did not want him to think her quite mad, only a little unique, only containing within her just that measure of the unexpected sufficient to make her irreplaceable.”

“Forget the boring old dictum "write about what you know." Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance your understanding of the world and write about that.”

“Life is not a dress rehearsal.”

“Inevitably we make a small world in the midst of a big one. For a small world is all we know how to make.’p46”

“We may avoid shame if we choose, for shame seldom takes us unawares but has its warning cry, and we can hear that cry as clearly as we can hear the coming of the north wind... The man lying in the mud hadn't heard the coming of the north wind.”