John Murray > Quotes

“He put his shoes over the red stone footprints and when he came to the last one on the path, fell to the ground and imagined being shot. The grass was cool and sharp on his cheek. Dying, he resolved, was like that—like lying down on a piece of very green grass, surrounded by flowering shrubs, and never getting up again.”
― John Murray, A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies

“When he heard the sounds of his mother, a mother he had never known, crying like an animal in the damp grass, Joseph whispered to his father. “Row,” he whispered, “row us away from here.”
― John Murray, A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies

“But it is the unopened letter that he will remember most clearly. It is heavy. The red ink is already smudged. The letter makes him feel as if anything is possible. The future and the past are in his hands. Everything is contained. Time feels as measured as the white flour drifting in the air and he understands, foe a few slow minutes, the pleasure of not knowing.”
― John Murray, A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies