Quotes from Michel Faber

Her invisible remains would combine, over time, with all the wonders under the sun. When it snowed she would be part of it, falling softly to earth, rising up again with the snow's evaporation, When it rained, she would be there in the spectral arch that spanned from firth to ground. She would help to wreathe the fields in mists, and yet would always be transparent to the stars. She would live forever.

All along the street, keys rattle in key-holes as each shop's ornate metal clothing is stripped away...It's as if, having unlocked the chastity of shutters and doors, they can't see the point in maintaining any shred of modesty.

ISSERLEY ALWAYS DROVE straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him, to give herself time to size him up. She was looking for big muscles: a hunk on legs. Puny, scrawny specimens were no use to her.

Unfortunately, stupidity, like rust and weeds and lies and mould, tends to spread.

Anyway," Peter continued. "I got the most amazing welcome. These people are desperate to learn about God!" "Well, ain't that a lick on the dick," said BG.

Unreality was swirling all around her like the delirious miasmas

it was already tomorrow. She should have known from the beginning that it would end like this.

Men! Armchair heroes the lot of them, while women were sent out to do the dirty work.

So much for yesterday. Today, Sophie's formal education must begin. Dressing the lamb before the kill, as Mrs Castaway once put it, when Sugar dared to ask what, exactly, education is.

Isserley walked along the path the generations of sheep-flocks had made, up the tiers of the hill. In her mind, she was already

William Rackham es lo que podríamos llamar un cristiano ateo supersticioso; es decir, cree en un Dios que si bien puede que ya no sea responsable de que salga el sol, de salvar a la reina o de proveer del pan de cada día, sigue siendo el principal sospechoso cuando algo va mal.

The holy book he'd spent so much of his life preaching from had one cruel flaw: it was not very good at offering encouragement or hope to those who weren't religious.

What do you expect? This place is one big anti-climax.

Belief was a place that people didn't leave until they absolutely must.

People were so strange and sometimes you got tired just thinking about them.

God, Agnes has decided, is an Anglican, whereas Our Lady is of the True Faith; the two of Them have an uneasy relationship, unable to agree on anything, except that if They divorce, the Devil will leap gleefully into the breach. So, They tolerate each other, and take care of the world as best They can. Moving

Proof, once again, that reality was not objective, but always waiting to be reshaped and redefined by one's attitude.

William pouts irritably. Socialism is not the same thing as letting one's servants muddle towards anarchy. But never mind, never mind: on a day like today, it's not worth worrying over. Soon the servant question, at least in William Rackham's household, will be resolved beyond any ambiguity.

Reading, by its very nature, is an admission of defeat, a ritual of self-humiliation: it shows that you believe other lives are more interesting than yours

She sings on and on, while the house is discreetly dusted all around her and, in the concealed and subterranean kitchen, a naked duck, limp and faintly steaming, spreads its pimpled legs on a draining board.

The indiscriminate, eternal devotion of nature to its numberless particles had an emotional importance for Isserley; it put the

reality was not objective, but always waiting to be reshaped and redefined by one's attitude. Of

Prostitution.' He enunciates the word clearly, gazing directly into her eyes, knowing, God damn it, that he is being cruel. In the back of his mind, a kinder William Rackham watches impotently as his wife is penetrated by that single elongated word, its four slick syllables barbed midway with t's. Agnes's cameo face goes white as she gulps for air.

During the night, her body had come to a fine agreement with the blanket, sheets, and mattress; they'd all got on really well and found the perfect balance of natural blood-circulation and cost wrapped-upness.