Quotes from Stuart McLean

We may not be big but we're small!

Men can sense when a wall is coming down, and they can't help the fact that they have to be there to watch it fall, or better yet, help push it over. It has been argued that the fall of the Berlin Wall had nothing whatsoever to do with the collapse of communism: it was just a weekend project that got out of control—thousands of German guys satisfying their undeniable urge to fix things up.

He turned the music up loud. So what if it would deafen him? It made him happy. Like it had so many times before.

For the briefest instant, his brain was the only thing that reacted. Mistake, thought his brain. Then the mouthful of water, mixed with what remained of the almond toffee crunch, fire hosed out of his mouth, arced across the table and hit Mary Turlington just above her bosom.

He considered the hard times in his life. All the things he had been afraid of. All those years wasted, he told himself, because I was terrified of being different. That's why all us fifty-four-year-olds end up looking so much alike. All of us are terrified of being different.

She realized that the stains on the pot—like the scratches on her records, the dent on the kitchen floor where she dropped a skate, and the lines on her face—they all added up to the same thing: her life. They said, in their own way, the only thing that any of us can say, the only thing that is worth saying: I passed this way. I was here.