Цитаты из книг — Румер Годден

Songs are memories, ‘even when you don’t want them to be,’ says Mrs Quin. ‘They persist,’ she says in pain, and once she is betrayed into crying out to Bella, who has a passion for old tunes, ‘Don’t play that. Don’t.’

The stories are all different — of course, each has its time and place — yet they are all alike in that, as with every day, they must belived though from sunrise to sunset, all the hours of the day;and as the day ends, it begins," says Mrs. Quin.

Homes must know a certain loneliness because all humans are lonely, shut away from one another, even in the act of talking, of loving.

Tea at China Court was a ritual: "an absurd anachronism," Bella said often. "But a delightful one," said Tom. Cecily had carried in the silver tray and lit the spirit-lamp under the kettle. The table now had a lace-edged embroidered cloth and on it was the pink tea set the third Grace had envied, with its shallow cups,…

"Books are not meant to be bargains." Jeremy Baxter is triumphant too though a part of him disapproves. "Buy books for what is in them, Miss Eliza" —to the very end he keeps his punctilious way of addressing her— "for what is in them." "Yes, but I like bargains," says obstinate Eliza.

In this country, at this time, there is only one way to educate a girl,’ says Jeremy Baxter. ‘Turn her loose with books, guide her, but let her read."

The villagers come here often because, contrary to most modern belief, there is comfort in a grave; it can be a quiet place to sit by for a visit, with its ordered grass and still stones, and it brings a sense of nearness. Indeed, a grave can be almost a companion, a visit to it a pilgrimage back to love;

John Henry is incapable of saying ‘no’ – ‘fortunately for China Court,’ says Mrs Quin. Over and over again in his married life with her he begins by saying, ‘It’s impossible,’ only to find he has done the impossible thing.

All unhappiness,’ says Mrs Quin, ‘as you live with it, becomes shot through with happiness; it cannot help it; and all happiness, I suppose, is shot through with unhappiness. But I was usually happy,’ says Mrs Quin.

Even when one is stricken, much remains – often creature things: drinking good tea from a thin porcelain cup; hot baths; the smell of a wood fire; the warmth of firelight and candlelight. The sound of a stream can be consolation, thinks Mrs Quin, or the shape of a tree; even stricken, she can enjoy those. To hold a skeleton…

He comes back for a year or two as the enchanting small boy in the portrait in her room, but in a moment, it seems to Mrs Quin, there is school, the dreadful system that snatches little boys away from their mothers and turns them into bony objectionable small monsters.

That was written now in capitals in his mind: LAST DAY, but smoke was going up from one of the chimneys; the kitchen fire was lit. It was like a calm message from the house; last days too are every day, said the message.

The China Court cats inherit, one after the other, the sunny windowsill outside the morning room. In spring, the bed below it is planted with wallflowers; the cats lie there half drugged by the heavy sweetness.

To watch her among her flowers is, as John Henry her husband says, like watching a scholar in his library who, as he talks, goes to one shelf or another, pulling out a book to show, to brood over or to read from.