1
Life took longer to reassemble than it did to blow apart, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be lovely, providing that one remembered to go for country walks, and to tune the wireless to music.Chris Cleave
2
One could always imagine that one's life, though smoldering in parts, might be undamaged in the west.Chris Cleave
3
One could always imagine that one's life, though smoldering parts, might be undamaged in the west." "We also serve who live with grace." "If there had been more time, or less, it all would have been easier. If its an hour one can say what one likes. If it's a year, one can be what one is like. A day is exactly the wrong lenght of time to be oneself in, don't you think?" "In the end I suppose we lay flowers on a grave because we cannot lay ourselves on it." "The dead were filthy, half buried, sometimes barely distinguishable from the mud or the rubble they lay in. One didn't understand, until one had seen a great many bodies, the unconscious effort that one must be making every minute simply to keep one's hands and face and clothes clean. The world's surfaces were so filthy that the living touched them only with the tips of their fingers and the soles of their shoes. How grubby it was to die, to give up making that effort." Life took longer to reassemble than it did to blow apart, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be lovely, providing that one remembered to go for country walks, and to tune the wireless to music. .Chris Cleave
4
In my world death will come chasing. In your world it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself. I know this because it started whispering to me when I was in the detention center.Chris Cleave
5
But what good is it to teach a child to count, if you don't show him that he counts for something?Chris Cleave
6
Sorry. But it isn’t for us to change how things are. I’m just an administrator. You’re just a teacher.”“ Oh, I hope I don’t teach. Because look what we did: we saved the zoo animals and the nice children and we damned the afflicted and the blacks. You know what I do every day in that classroom? I do everything in my power to make sure those poor souls won’t learn the obvious lesson.”“ If I were you, ” said Tom, “I should stick to reading, writing and arithmetic.”“ But what good is it to teach a child to count, if you don’t show him that he counts for something? .Chris Cleave
7
They spoke of small things at first, since it was best, when reattaching threads, to begin with the easiest knots.Chris Cleave
8
People spoke in whispers, as if the war was listeningChris Cleave
9
She knew, now, why her father had not spoken of the last war, nor Alistair of his. It was hardly fair on the living.Chris Cleave
10
I suppose we ought to be getting home, in any case.”“ Oh god, is it wartime already?”“ Look on the bright side: it’ll be dinner when we get back.Chris Cleave
11
The first problem of war was that no one was any good at it yet.Chris Cleave
12
Her mother set to with the hairbrush again. “But would that be so awful, darling? To be the prettiest thing in Brimscombe-and-Thrupp?”“I should rather die.”“ You nearly did.”“ Yes, but I tend to blame the Germans.Chris Cleave
13
Then I’m tempted to die just to … spite him.”“ That’s the spirit that will win us the war.Chris Cleave
14
There in the sweet sacking smell of the mail bags he understood that he was dying, and it pleased him that he was going in the company of so many soft words home.Chris Cleave
15
Everything can be restored. If one won't believe that, how does one endure all this?Chris Cleave
16
One didn't understand, until one had seen a great many bodies, the unconscious effort that one must be making every minute simply to keep one's hands and face and clothes clean. The world's surfaces were so filthy that the living touched them only with the tips of their fingers and the soles of their shoes. How grubby it was to die, to give up making that effort.Chris Cleave
17
This helpful war. It makes us better people and then it tries to kill us.Chris Cleave
18
There was less of him now. There was less of them all. Officers and men dragged themselves around in uniforms three sizes too big, new holes punched into every belt, every collar hanging loose. They were a garrison of skinny boys performing a play about soldiers.Chris Cleave
19
Alistair smiled. 'How long this war has been.'' I'll say. One hardly remembers how we lived before. Lightly - not worrying much.'' Do you suppose we shall ever live that way again?'' Oh, who knows? Given sufficient champagne and ether.'' Maybe if we stay drunk to the end of our days we shan't remember.Chris Cleave
20
I move we get more wine, ' Alistair said. 'What does the panel think?'... It was obvious that the entire war could be solved in this way. The trick would be to reach for a corkscrew instead, every time some brass hat ordered artillery.Chris Cleave
21
On a bike ride through the Surrey Lanes, pedalling in my cotton dress through the hot fields blushing with poppies, freewheeling down a sudden dip into a cool wooded sanctum.Chris Cleave
22
You are a mousetrap of a friend, all soft cheese and hard springsChris Cleave
23
Exposing corruption, brandishing truth.Chris Cleave
24
I want to be a journalist again. I want to make a difference in the world.Chris Cleave
25
What is the good of influence if one can only use it on strangers?Chris Cleave
26
Murder me with bombs you poor lonely sod I will only build myself again and stronger. I am too stupid to know better I am a woman built on the wreckage of myself.Chris Cleave
27
The true moments of one's life were sadder for the fact that they must always be synchronized with the ordinary: with rail timetables, with breaks in traffic.Chris Cleave
28
There are countries of the world, and regions of one's own mind, where it is unwise to travel.Chris Cleave
29
On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.Chris Cleave
30
Mary leaned back, exhaled, and watched her smoke rise. 'What sort of man do you want anyway?'" Tall. Funny. Never came top of his class or pulled the wings off bees."" Yes, but I mean really? When all of this is over, and assuming we win -" ...Hilda snorted. "(I) just want a tall man and a stiff drink. You could even swap the adjectives.Chris Cleave
31
For me and the girls from my village, horror is a disease and we are sick with it. It is not an illness you can cure yourself of by standing up and letting the big red cinema seat fold itself up behind you.Chris Cleave
32
Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.Chris Cleave
33
Putting down the power right from the whistle would be ugly and brutal, but it would get the job done. He wanted to tell her that, but this was the thing with coaching: you had to step back at exactly the moment you ached to step forward.Chris Cleave
34
Let them say whatever gives them comfort.Chris Cleave
35
I did not want to tell her what happened, but I had to now. I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.Chris Cleave
36
A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.Chris Cleave
37
On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars a s beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’. In a few breaths’ time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them as we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means the storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvellous, and then she will turn round and smile. .Chris Cleave
38
I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But (...) we must see all scars as beauty. (...) Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.Chris Cleave
39
I understand that your brain is large and perpetually at war with itselfChris Cleave
40
I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.Chris Cleave
41
He really had experienced every tiniest increment of time in the four decades since then, and yet here he was surprised to be suddenly old and crippled. Turned out the rope didn't care if you noticed every daisy on the path to the gallows.Chris Cleave
42
When death comes you do not stay for one minute in the place it has visited. Many things arrive after death-sadness, questions, and policemen- and none of these can be answered when your papers are not in order.Chris Cleave
43
Andrew had a gift for deepening the incision he began.Chris Cleave
44
...disaster, when it is quite sure of its own strength, will announce itself by hardly moving its lips...Chris Cleave
45
When you make a man ashamed, you make him dangerous.Chris Cleave
46
We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves.Chris Cleave
47
After the war of course it will be like the start of spring, which is always so brilliantly sudden. The leaves will burst back onto the trees and close the gaps between the branches and we shall be startled - shan't we? - s we are startled at the end of every winter. We shall think: oh, I had quite forgotten there were three livable seasons.Chris Cleave
48
Before you bombed my boy Osama I always thought an explosion was such a quick thing but now I know better. The flash is over very fast but the fire catches hold inside you and the noise never stops… I live in an inferno where you could shiver with cold Osama. This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop.Chris Cleave
49
This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop.Chris Cleave
50
Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dess? I though that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. "We must see all scars as beauty. OKay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on dying. A scar means, I survivied. .Chris Cleave
51
How well it had suited me, that absolute license to march up to evildoers and demand who, what, where, when and why?Chris Cleave
52
The reason why I love people, and writing about them, is because they don't always respond with hate and anger. If they did I wouldn't have a story to tell. Who wants to know about someone who was brutalised and became brutal? I'm interested in the exceptions.Chris Cleave