Mick Jackson > Quotes

“Deprived of our memories we are deprived of our very selves. Without our histories we are vacated. We may walk and talk and eat and sleep but, in truth, we are nobody.”
― Mick Jackson, The Underground Man

“Old age is but the reduced capacity of a failing machine.”
― Mick Jackson, The Underground Man

“The closer it came the more speed it gathered about it, until suddenly it was tearing a great hole right through the day.”
― Mick Jackson, Five Boys

“The moon is, in fact, a hole in the sky. Consider.”
― Mick Jackson, The Underground Man

“In the evenings they would sometimes sit out in the garden and listen to the steady hum of the bees‘ industry and breathe in the honey in full flow. The Boys learnt how the different sounds from the hive denoted different moods, different activities, and that each worker, far from being a mere gatherer of nectar or builder of comb, carried out a whole host of duties at various points in her short life―a nursemaid to the larvae, a sentry to keep out robber bees, a carpet sweeper to keep the hive tidy, a punka-wallah when it got too hot.”
― Mick Jackson, Five Boys

“A notice was pinned on the back of the organ, about two feet from his face:

DESTRUCTION OF CHURCHES BY FIRES ORIGINATING IN THE ORGANS

1. The organ is damp, a lamp or stove is placed in it and left to burn all night, with the result of setting it on fire.
2. The organist, the blower, the tuner, or a workman making repairs, strikes a match , or lights a spirit taper, or candle, which he leaves burning, with the result of setting the organ on fire.
3. The music desk lights are movable brackets which can be placed so that the flames touch woodwork; this is done once, and the whole is set on fire.

ECCLESIASTICAL INSURANCE OFFICE
Lim. 11 Norfolk Street, Strand, London WC”
― Mick Jackson, Five Boys

“She pops her head into a bare-looking kitchen and has a little wander round it. Here, she reads, Emily would sometimes make bread with her right hand while holding a book of German verse in her left. Well, OK, Yuki thinks, now you're talking. Because she applauds any woman who is unashamed of her intelligence. Also, what a great little trick. Over dinner last night the Elders were discussing Branwell, the dissolute Bronte brother, and someone mentioned a little party-piece he was said to have performed at the local pub in which he'd write a line of Latin with his right hand while writing the same thing in Greek with his left. So now Yuki's wondering if the Bronte kids weren't, in fact, exceptionally gifted linguists - or whether having your hands do different things simultaneously wasn't just about as wild an evening as you were likely to have back then.
She heads up the stairs, where it's a little cooler - and more dismal, if that's possible - and stands on the landing, consulting her leaflet, where she learns that there were, in fact, another two Bronte girls, who died when they were still children. Two invisible, extra Brontes no one's ever heard of, since neither lived long enough to lift a pen. The first bedroom she enters, it seems, is where the mother passed away, knowing that all her children would have to go on, motherless. With just their crazy father to look after them. And this really is just about too much for poor Yukiko. She's tempted to throw herself onto the old bed and have a good long cry about it, and might have done so if she didn't suspect that the bed, bedroom floor and the entire Bronte house would likely to collapse around her, which would only mean her being dragged off to the local jailhouse, to be beaten about the body with copies of 'Wuthering Heights'.”
― Mick Jackson, Yuki Chan in Brontë Country