Colin Barrett > Quotes

“It is Sunday. The weekend, that three-day festival of attrition, is done. Sunday is the day of purgation and redress; of tenderised brain cases and see-sawing stomachs and hollow pledges to never, ever get that twisted again.”
― Colin Barrett, Young Skins

“it is soothing to listen to the radio static bristle of the rushing water.”
― Colin Barrett, Young Skins

“I don’t think any other animal does rape,”
― Colin Barrett, The Dolphin

“because it was an awful thing, maybe the worst thing, to discover that in the end you were only good enough to get far enough to find out that you were not good enough.”
― Colin Barrett, Homesickness

“father wanted what every alcoholic who cannot quit wants: exoneration. To die of something other than drink would, by his sodden logic, exonerate him. Could you have been that chronic an alcoholic if you didn’t even die of it?”
― Colin Barrett, Homesickness

“We went there for an anniversary. It was Trevor’s idea. Trevor’s the traveller,’ Noonan continued. Trevor was her husband. ‘Enjoying the place you get to is one thing. But Trevor has this thing for the travel itself; the luggage and the security lines, the time zones, the little trays of food with the foil lids you peel back they give you onboard, and these days having to drag a pair of mewling teenage boys everywhere with us. Trevor gets giddy at all of it, somehow. Me, I could live a long happy life never going through a metal detector again. You ever been anywhere exotic, Pronsius?’ ‘I been the far side of Belmullet.’ ‘Good man.’ ‘Ah,’ Swift sighed, ‘I’ve no interest, really. Wherever I am, that’s where I like.’ ‘A man after my own heart.”
― Colin Barrett, Homesickness