Includes quotes from throughout the book. Specific quotes organized by theme and the main characters - Patricia, Looksmart, Beauty, Bheki, and Richard.
This is useful when it comes to writing literature essays (both for finals, and for in-class work). I've collected the important quotes for you, s...
Theme’s (not character specific):
“Soon the trees [bloodwoods] will be cut down and cleared away, along with everything
else. The people who come to live here afterwards will know nothing about any of them,
and maybe it will be better that way.”
“For them, English remains the language of lies and liars.”
“Even those who see each other every day are finally blind to one another.”
“Perhaps the deaths of Rachel and Grace have levelled the land between them and
established clearer perspectives.”
“There is an opportunity for one of them to speak, to say a few words that might help
them to laugh the moment away, but each of them keeps their peace - and as the two
drivers ease forward, they raise their hands and carry on.”
Relating to the characters:
Patricia:
“How long has it been since Patricia last touched them [Richards hands]? Or been
touched by them? She probably comes into contact with them every day, but contact is
very far from touch.”
“This verdant stretch, which was once a favourite place of Patricia’s - a breathing place
between the real world and the farm - has been reduced to a war zone,”
“Mismatch’ -> how Patricia describes her marriage to Richard.
“The one good man in my life.” -> Patricia’s father
‘When he [Looksmart] went it was like all the colour had faded from the world.”
, (Looksmart says, “What are you saying” That the past is unimportant?) “Unimportant?
(…) I have no idea - but the past doesn’t amount to much in the end, does it?”
“He [Looksmart] remembers her well back then: how she liked to live with her head
buried deep in the earth, while the rest of the country was in flames,”
“The truth?” “She says this as though the truth is a concept only children believe in, like
dragons and houses made out of bread and cake.”
“She [Beauty] won't come unless you call her like you’re calling one of your dogs.”
(Looksmart says this)
“Children had become one of the topics they avoided” (Richard and Patricia)
“Her visits to Rawdons Hotel with John Ford: it was a secret pleasure and act of
defiance. Not so much against Richard as in the opposite direction from him, towards
everything Richard was not- towards life.”
“The dog would never have bitten her [Grace] had she not provoked it - isn't that what
Richard said?”
“She would have shot that dog if Richard hadn’t stopped her.”
“You [Patricia] made us to put down blankets - flea-bitten blankets you reserve for your
dogs.”
‘For a moment she thinks he’s going to say he loved her. (...) But even if this were true,
it is of course impossible for him to declare it: such expressions have never been their
way.”
“Even now she does not understand the source of her abiding apathy, but she has
sometimes wondered whether it was her father’s love that ruined her, for everything
else since then has been a bit of a disappointment.”
“She also senses that the events of that day will never be spoken of again - not if
anyone can help it. Even if that double beast in the garden will always be circling
somewhere near the centre of their lives, dripping blood.”
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