01UndatedOne time, two years ago, I took a draught of morphia, meaning to end my life. My mother found me before the life was ended, the doctor drew the poison from my stomach with a syringe, and when I woke, it was to the sound of my own weeping. For I had hoped to open my eyes on Heaven, where my father was; and they had only pulled me back to Hell.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
02UndatedShe scissored the curls away, and - toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember this sensation very vividly - it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free...Sarah Waters / quote ↗
03UndatedWhy do gentlemen's voices carry so clearly, when women's are so easily stifled?Sarah Waters / quote ↗
05UndatedI felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart—so hard, it hurt me.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
06UndatedBut, here was a curious thing. The more I tried to give up thinking of her, the more I said to myself, 'She's nothing to you', the harder I tried to pluck the idea of her out of my heart, the more she stayed there.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
07UndatedShe wished for a moment that they were all children again. It still seemed extraordinary to her, that everything had turned out the way it had.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
08UndatedDon't you be thinking,' she says, 'on things that are done and can't be changed. All right, dear girl? You think of the time to come.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
09UndatedIt is a world that is made of love. Did you think there is only the kind of love your sister has for her husband? Did you think there must be here, a man with whiskers, and over here, a lady in a gown? Haven't I said, there are no whiskers and gowns where spirits are? And what will your sister do if her husband should die, and she should take another? Who will she fly to then, when she has crossed the spheres? For she will fly to someone, we will all fly to someone, we will all return to that piece of shining matter from which our souls were torn with another, two halves of the same.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
11UndatedFor she was the only one, of all of them, to have spared me a pleasant word; and suddenly I longed for time to pass, not for its own sake, but as it would take me back to her.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
12UndatedThe day had begun to feel tinny: a pretend day, a dream day, that for some unaccountable reason she had to go on and on with as if it were real.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
13UndatedDon't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
14UndatedShe said that that was the disadvantage of bringing creatures into the house: one grew used to them, and then, one had the upset of their loss.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
15UndatedAnd perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
16UndatedShe closed her eyes and let the rain fall on her face, and after another second, I could not have said what were raindrops, and what tears.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
17UndatedThey might be kind, I thought. They might be sensible and good. They will not be like you. But I did not say it. I knew it would mean nothing to her. I said something - something ordinary and mild, I cannot think what. And after a time she came and kissed my cheek, and then she left me.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
18UndatedWith every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
19UndatedBut the more I think it, the more I want her, the more my desire rises and swells.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
20UndatedIt made me giddy. It made me blush, worse than before. It was like liquor. It made me drunk. I drew away. When her breath came now upon my mouth, it came very cold. My mouth was wet, from hers. I said, in a whisper,'Do you feel it?Sarah Waters / quote ↗
21UndatedShe raised her head when she heard my step, and her gaze met my own, over the matron's dipping shoulder, and her eyes grew bright. I knew then how hard it had been to keep, not just from Millbank but from her. I felt that little quickening. It was just as I imagine a woman must feel, when the baby within her gives its first kick. Does it matter if I feel that, that is so small, and silent, and secret?Sarah Waters / quote ↗
22UndatedIt was heavy, and I staggered when I lifted it; but it was strangely satifying to have a real burden upon my shoulders – a kind of counterweight to my terrible heaviness of heart.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
23UndatedBut it's the simple and the good that are meant to suffer in this world—ain't it, though!Sarah Waters / quote ↗
24UndatedShe shook her head, and closed her eyes. I felt her weariness then, and with it, my own. I felt it dark and heavy upon me, darker and heavier than any drug they ever gave me - it seemed heavy as death. I looked at the bed. I have seemed to see our kisses there sometimes, I've seen them hanging in the curtains, like bats, ready to swoop. Now, I thought, I might jolt the post and they would only fall, and shatter, and turn to powder.Sarah Waters / quote ↗
