gone but not forgotten

Its been a while since I have collated my collected quotes. So here are the flashes that refuse to fade from some of my recent reading.

‘When we spoke the wind whipped our words inland, and I imagined them being trapped miles away, caught in the branches of trees like plastic bags’

James Robertson

‘A vapour trail gashed the sky. But the sky healed itself. Without fuss.’

David Mitchell

Striking descriptions of the natural world always jump out at me.

‘and even when peoples names began to slip out of reach his was the last name she forgot.’

Jon McGregor

Memory - one of my favourite pastimes. Perhaps all we can hope for is to be the last name our loved ones forget?

‘All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.’

Mitch Albom

I often feel that I spend my time stating the same point over and over again, just in slightly different ways. Here Albom makes a point that is often repeated, but gives it a new powerful slant.

‘a woman named Mrs Benson, who spoke as through a pencil sharpener that turned all her speech into impaling pointy phrases.’

Eli Gottlieb

We have probably all known someone like this!

And finally, after years of reading about ‘nonpareils’ in various novels, I looked them up to see what they were. And they are those milk or white chocolate buttons with the technicoloured balls on. Although there seems some debate as to whether the word applies to the whole sweet or just the balls. I always thought they were more aptly referred to as ‘hundreds and thousands’?