the luminaries, eleanor catton.
my favourite quotes.
♡
♡
♡: only a weak mind puts faith in coincidence.
♡: he was unused to the awful compression that comes after a lie, when it dawns upon the liar that the lie he has uttered is one to which now he is bound; that now he must keep lying, and compound smaller lies upon the first, and be shuttered in lonely contemplation of his own mistake.
♡: tauwhare felt a swell of anger in his chest- an anger so bitter and tormented that it manifested into pain.
♡: this happened so often between the languages; english and maroti: the words of one tongue never found their equivalent in the other, just as there was no white man's herb that one might exactly exchange for puha, and no white man's bread that exactly called to mind rewena pararoa: however close the imagined, or something lost.
♡: balfour enjoyed the fierce indifference of a storm. he liked lonely places because he never really felt alone.
♡: the girl was uncommonly striking- she moved with a weary, murderous languor, like a disaffected swan- but she was more volatile in her tempers than nilssen liked in a girl, and her beauty (in fact nilssen would not call her beautiful; he reserved that word for virgins and angelic forms) was too knowingly for his taste.
♡: for although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done.
♡: gascoigne believed that justice ought to be a synonym for mercy, not an alternative. he also believed that merciful action answered to instinct before it answered to any law.
♡: we spend our entire lives thinking about death. without that project to divert us, i expect we would all be dreadfully bored. we would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about. time would have no consequence.
♡: the colour black is invisible to spirits. i'll make a bet that you didn't know that- did you, now! it's why we wear black at funerals: if we dressed in colour we'd attract the attention of the dead.
♡: i don't trust, anna. i don't trust her a straw. i don't even love her. but i wish i did. isn't that a curious thing? i wish i did.
♡: luck is by nature undeserved.
♡: he was unused to the awful compression that comes after a lie, when it dawns upon the liar that the lie he has uttered is one to which now he is bound; that now he must keep lying, and compound smaller lies upon the first, and be shuttered in lonely contemplation of his own mistake.
♡: tauwhare felt a swell of anger in his chest- an anger so bitter and tormented that it manifested into pain.
♡: this happened so often between the languages; english and maroti: the words of one tongue never found their equivalent in the other, just as there was no white man's herb that one might exactly exchange for puha, and no white man's bread that exactly called to mind rewena pararoa: however close the imagined, or something lost.
♡: balfour enjoyed the fierce indifference of a storm. he liked lonely places because he never really felt alone.
♡: the girl was uncommonly striking- she moved with a weary, murderous languor, like a disaffected swan- but she was more volatile in her tempers than nilssen liked in a girl, and her beauty (in fact nilssen would not call her beautiful; he reserved that word for virgins and angelic forms) was too knowingly for his taste.
♡: for although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done.
♡: gascoigne believed that justice ought to be a synonym for mercy, not an alternative. he also believed that merciful action answered to instinct before it answered to any law.
♡: we spend our entire lives thinking about death. without that project to divert us, i expect we would all be dreadfully bored. we would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about. time would have no consequence.
♡: the colour black is invisible to spirits. i'll make a bet that you didn't know that- did you, now! it's why we wear black at funerals: if we dressed in colour we'd attract the attention of the dead.
♡: i don't trust, anna. i don't trust her a straw. i don't even love her. but i wish i did. isn't that a curious thing? i wish i did.
♡: luck is by nature undeserved.
♡: perhaps the furniture will move about. perhaps we will feel breezes- the breath of the underworld, some might call it as the spirits around us are disturbed.
♡: the best lawmen can enforce the law without a badge.
♡: something more than prayers is holding this one together.
♡: solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company. especially the company of another soul. it's dreadful to feel alone and really BE alone. but i enjoy the feeling when i'm not.
♡: love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love. any man who disagrees with me has never been in love- not truly.
♡: and goodbye. i could wish good fortune upon you, but that would be a waste of a wish, would it not?
♡: a breath of fresh air, is what you are. unspoiled. nothing worse than a woman with a ready answer. nothing worse than a woman who's forgotten how to blush.
♡: everybody loves a theme. it lends flavor to an evening.
