Quotes from Sarah Waters

and claws of creeping foxes.

Well, that was the clerk class for you. They might be completely without culture, but they certainly knew how to make themselves comfortable.

When she spoke at last, I knew at once that she was rather drunk. "Seen something you fancy, Nancy?..." she said. I swallowed, unsure of what reply to make to her. She walked closer, then stopped a few paces from me, and continued to fix me with the same even, arrogant gaze.

I would rather visit Selina, than go to Garden Court to visit Helen--for Helen is as full of wedding talk as any of them, but Selina they have so removed from ordinary rules and habits, she might be living, cold and graceful, on the surface of the moon.

I think she's pulling your leg about something. She's a married girl, isn't she?' 'Yes.' 'I thought she was. You'd never know it. If I was her husband, I'd smack her behind... How about you?' 'Yes, I'd smack it too.' He drew in his lower lip in a silent guffaw. 'No, I mean, have you got a chap? Is that what she's smiling at? He's going to come and black my eye for me, is he?

The idea made me shiver, rather; for it was queer to think of being loved, not just for my own sake, but for someone's I never knew...

She was my one true love. Does that sound odd to you? I never expected, when I was young, that I should fall in love with my own child, but she and I were like sweethearts.

I had kissed her. I had lain upon her. I had touched her with a sliding hand. I had called her a pearl. She had been kinder to me than anyone save Mrs Sucksby; and she had made me love her, when I meant only to ruin her.

I must bruise her, for all the commonplace wanting of him that ?were I an ordinary girl, with an ordinary heart ? I would surely feel myself.

As for women and men, she said—well, that was the first thing that must be cast off.

The scullery roof had sprung a leak: she put down a bowl to catch the drips, but the rainwater spread and darkened, to make treasure maps and Whistler nocturnes of the walls and ceiling.

Now I feel myself a book, as books must seem to her: she looks at me with unreading eyes, sees the shape, but not the meaning of the text. She marks the white flesh ?'Ain't you pale!' she says ? but not the quick, corrupted blood beneath.

I knew about that kind of love. I knew how it was to bare your palpitating heart, and be fearful as you did so that the beats should come too loudly, and betray you. I had kept my heart-beats smothered; and had been betrayed, anyway.

Don't hurt yourself,' she will say ?so simply, so kindly, I quite forget that she is only keeping me safe for Richard's sake. I think that she forgets it, too.

The 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.

shall grow dry and pale and paper-thin—like a leaf, pressed tight inside the pages of a dreary black book and then forgotten.

She wore a boiled shirt and a bow-tie, and her hair, though long and bound, was sleek with oil. She was about two- or three-and-thirty, and her waist was thick; but her upper lip, at least, was dark as a boy's. They would have called her terribly handsome, I guessed, in about 1880.

Her face was thin, her hair was dull. Her dress was worn with use, like a servant's dress. Her eyes were wild, with tears starting in them; but beyond the tears, her gaze was hard. Hard as marble, hard as brass. Hard as a pearl, and the grit that lies inside it.

She's rich, oh yes,' said Gentleman, nodding. 'But only as a caterpillar is rich in wings, or clover rich in honey.

No schoolgirl modesty here! Did I bring you to my house, and teach you the ways of my collection, to see you colour? Well, no more of that. Here is work, not leisure. You will soon forget the substance, in the scrutiny of the form.

It was as though their life, thought Frances, were being mercilessly spooled back on to a reel; or as if, one by one, the stitches that had fastened them together were being unpicked.

Richard Rivers has come into Briar like a spore of yeast into dough, changing it utterly.

With the world in the state it is, it's such a small, small thing. But I think the sad fact is that I'm about as happy in my life as you are in yours. I do my best for my mother—or, I tell myself that I do. Sometimes I seem to do nothing but scold her; we cross each other like a pair of scissors. She isn't happy, either. How could she be? I think she's simply marking time. Well, perhaps we all are.

You must be strong. I have seen you be strong, before.' 'It is only— ' But, only what? How might I say it? Only that she held my head against her breast, when I woke bewildered. That she warmed my foot with her breath, once. That she ground my pointed tooth with a silver thimble. That she brought me soup— clear soup— instead of an egg, and smiled to see me drink it. That her eye has a darker fleck of brown. That she thinks me good . . .