04c. 1992 ADFor some people, she thought, trials were only temporary; they sailed towards happiness through the roughest weather.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
05c. 1992 ADIt came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the crow flew.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
06c. 1992 ADThe worn soles of Daffy's boots skidded on the icy stones. He'd been saving up for a new pair for Christmas, but then he'd come across an encyclopaedia in ten volumes, going cheap. Boots might last ten years, at best, but knowledge was eternal.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
08c. 1992 ADFor all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
11c. 1992 ADIn the yard of the inn, Daffy Cadwaladyr introduced himself. "Short for Davyd," he said pleasantly.The Londoner looked as if she'd never heard a sillier name in her life.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
12c. 1992 ADAnd why must it always be presumed that a woman's views are based on personal considerations?Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
13c. 1992 ADMen never feel quite the same about a woman's body once they know it's done that thing: widened and torn to push out a baby's head.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
15c. 1992 ADDaffy bent down suddenly, and picked a small startled white flower. "Anemone," he said, handing it over; he made her repeat the word until she had it right. "Find me a silk to match that.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
17c. 1992 ADThe sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
18c. 1992 ADAny subject we exclude from fiction will drop from our culture's memory.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
19c. 1992 ADIn the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.Also everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the things all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
21c. 1992 AD...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
22c. 1992 ADIt was the word 'late' that did it. Such a stupid word to use of the dead, implying that they would be with us today if they hadn't happened to be delayed in traffic somewhere...Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
23c. 1992 ADJo claimed that the reason people survived breakups was that within days of the amputation, Mother Nature started reminding you of what you had been doing without, what could have been better, all the samll discontents you had been filing away.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
24c. 1992 ADAnd it did me no good to recall particular conversations (if indeed these were particular conversations I was remembering so vividly, rather than inventions of my uneasy brain). Remembering clarified nothing.Emma Donoghue / quote ↗
