Quotes

"...a way of dying before you die..."

Jeanne Moreau on nostalgia

"A rest on life's way. I had an hour and half's wait and took myself off to the abbey church which always calms me: why I am never sure. Perhaps just because it is there and has been for a thousand years - a shaped stone quarry turned turtle. Once under ground. Now upon it. So I sat alone by the west door and dived, drowning in its immensity. And stillness. And emptiness. So that, when I surfaced at the railway station, waiting for the train on its way from Norwich, I felt buoyant and quite myself again, ready, aye ready to outface fate, come what may."

J.L. Carr, What Hetty Did

"It was strange to see someone who was so frightened by life: it took him a huge effort to overcome himself. At first I wanted to make fun of him, like everyone else; but it didn't take long for me to realise that in reality I'd never known anyone with so much courage."

Tim Pears, In the Place of Fallen Leaves

"Things aren't simple. Things change. You see how people are, and you think they were always like that. You don't realise what people do to accomodate themselves in the world."

Tim Pears, ibid.