Quotes from Maggie O'Farrell

Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as "slipping away" or "peaceful" has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle.

Together, they will see to the girl, lift down the pallet, give her the medicine. They will take this matter in hand.

Doktorlar?n koÅŸturmas?n? iyiye iÅŸaret olmad???n? biliyordum. Normalde duygular?n? belli etmemeyi öÄŸrenmiÅŸ, soÄŸukkanl? ve mant?kl? insanlard?. Fakat yüzlerindeki bu maskenin kayd???-telaÅŸland?klar? ya da seslerini yükselttikleri- an, kayg?lanman?z gerekirdi.

Az ötedeki patikada büyük bir kayan?n ard?ndan bir adam ç?k?veriyor.

Karn?m burnumdayken gittiÄŸim partide bir kad?n doÄŸum uzman?yla tan??m??t?m. Hafiften aÄŸz? kayarak, bir s?r verir gibi "Bu doÄŸum iÅŸlerinde ya her ÅŸey yolunda gider ya da her ÅŸey batar" deyip kadehiyle karn?m? göstermiÅŸti. "Aras? yoktur".

Professor Adam Galinsky, an American social psychologist who has studied the connection between creativity and international travel, says that 'Foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility and depth and integrativeness of thought, the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms.'1

Not for the first time, it strikes her that she will never feel that again, that it is an experience now closed to her, at her age, at her stage in life. The loss of that possibility sears her sometimes: it is hard for a woman to let go of; harder still if another woman in your household is just entering that state. The sight of this girl's stomach, every time, makes Mary think of the emptiness, the quiet of her own.

Even the cook has to admit that there are advantages to living alongside a dynasty of cats.

Toda vida tiene un núcleo, un eje, un epicentro del que todo sale y al que todo vuelve.

The spectre is speaking without a mouth, saying he will not come in, he cannot, and they, the inhabitants, are hereby ordered not to go out, not to take to the streets, but to remain indoors until the pestilence is past.

The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children's hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play. Never for a moment forget they may be gone, snatched from you, in the blink of an eye, borne away from you like thistledown.

It will lie at her very core, for the rest of her life.

tinctures and tisanes

It is a string of letters, written in a slanted fashion; the words seem to slide down the page, as if they weigh more at the end of the sentence than at the beginning. He bends to look.

moment. He gives a half-smile. 'That is true,' he

He has a tendency to slip the bounds of the real, tangible world around him and enter another place.

She sees the cloud above him grow darker, gather its horrible rank strength. She wants to reach across the table then, to lay her hand on his arm. She wants to say, I am here. But what if her words are not enough? What if she is not enough of a salve for his nameless pain? For the first

time in her life, she finds she does not know how to help someone. She does not know what to do. And

Love is not changed by death and nothing is lost, and all in the end is harvest.

So it follows, of course, that she will be here now, in whatever form she can manage. Agnes does not need to turn her head, does not want to frighten her away. It is enough to know that she is there, manifest, hovering, insubstantial. I see you, she thinks. I know you are here.

Judith is whimpering, Susanna clutching her hand, so Agnes misses the moment, she misses seeing her son, the shroud see sewed for him, disappearing from view, entering the dark black river-sodden earth. It was there one moment, then she dipped her head to look at Judith and then it was gone. Never to be seen again.

There is so much to do in a family of this size, so much to see to, so many people needing so many different things. How easy is it, Agnes thinks, as she lifts the plates, to miss the pain and anguish of one person, if that person keeps quiet, if he keeps it all in, like a bottle stoppered too tightly, the pressure inside building and building, until—what? Agnes doesn't know.

there are the parents, then the sons, then the daughter, then the pigs in the pig-pen and the hens in the henhouse, then the apprentice and then, right at the bottom, the serving maids. Agnes believes her position, as new daughter-in-law, to be ambiguous, somewhere between apprentice and hen. Agnes

A boy is coming down a flight of stairs.