Jason Matthews > Quotes

“Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak - Simon Benford”
― Jason Matthews, Palace of Treason

“Her parents noticed, when Dominika turned five, that the little girl had a prodigious memory. She could recite lines from Pushkin, identify the concertos of Tchaikovsky. And when music was played, Dominika would dance barefoot around the Oriental carpet in the living room, perfectly in time with the notes, twirling and jumping, perfectly in balance, her eyes gleaming, her hands flashing. Vassily and Nina looked at each other, and her mother asked Dominika how she had learned all this. “I follow the colors,” said the little girl.
“What do you mean, ‘the colors’?” asked her mother. Dominika gravely explained that when the music played, or when her father read aloud to her, colors would fill the room. Different colors, some bright, some dark, sometimes they “jumped in the air” and all Dominika had to do was follow them. It was how she could remember so much. When she danced, she leapt over bars of bright blue, followed shimmering spots of red on the floor. The parents looked at each other again.
“I like red and blue and purple,” said Dominika. “When Batushka reads, or when Mamulya plays, they are beautiful.”
“And when Mama is cross with you?” asked Vassily.
“Yellow, I don’t like the yellow,” said the little girl, turning the pages of a book. “And the black cloud. I do not like that.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Walking home, Dominika thought furiously. Snap out of it. She was on assignment in a foreign country, living in her own apartment in a fairy-tale little city. It was wonderful. She had an important job to do, against a trained American intelligence officer. Well, he did not seem dangerous, but he was a CIA officer, and that was enough. Tonight she'd get him to talk more about himself. She'd ask him what he thought of Russians — he had not yet admitted he spoke the language. She would get him to talk about Moscow. He had to admit his posting there. As she walked quickly down lighted streets toward Yrjönkatu, unaware that her limp was more pronounced, she looked forward to the contact.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“The hell with them. They wanted a Sparrow, they would get a Sparrow. No one knew she could see the colors. Mikhail had said she was the best student he ever had in seeing people. She would stay. She would learn.
She told herself this wasn't love. This school, this mansion secluded behind walls topped with broken glass, was an engine of the State that institutionalized and dehumanized love. It didn't count, it was physical sex, it was training, like ballet school. In the flickering light in the musty library Dominika told herself she was going to go through with this, to spite these vnebrachnyi rebyonoki, these bastards.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Women haven't been allowed into the Academy for the last fifty years. I could waste six months trying to develop her for nothing. I think I should concentrate elsewhere."

Gable leaned farther into the room past Forsyth's shoulder. "That's right, think it all through." He laughed. "Are you fucking kidding me? A knockout like that, plus a close relative to someone on the top floor of the SVR? You better check it out, good and hard. Never mind going after someone else. This is a fucking ripe plum just waiting to get plucked.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Walking home, Dominika thought furiously. _Snap out of it._ She was on assignment in a foreign country, living in her own apartment in a fairy-tale little city. It was wonderful. She had an important job to do, against a trained American intelligence officer. Well, he did not seem dangerous, but he was a CIA officer, and that was enough. Tonight she'd get him to talk more about himself. She'd ask him what he thought of Russians — he had not yet admitted he spoke the language. She would get him to talk about Moscow. He had to admit his posting there. As she walked quickly down lighted streets toward Yrjönkatu, unaware that her limp was more pronounced, she looked forward to the contact.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Hell, don't they build these things for old eyes? Because no one lives that long, that's why, ...”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“gustavo.orihuela.fdez@gmail.com”
― Jason Matthews, Shep Sueña Con Un Hogar

“He ordered black bread and cheese. Very clever, she thought, he thinks that's all we Russians eat.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Kogda rak na gore svistnet, when the crayfish whistle on the mountain, when pigs fly.”
― Jason Matthews, Palace of Treason

“Those are the Wind in the Willows books: full of rats and moles.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Hell, don't they build these things for old eyes? Because no one lives that long, that's why, ...”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“... Zyuganov authorized a course of amobarbital that unpeeled Nasarenko's memory enough for him to walk them through the recent past, ...”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“He ordered black bread and cheese. Very clever, she thought, he thinks that's all we Russians eat.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“The night rain sheeted the street, blowing almost horizontally with the gusts of wind.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“He spoke to old friends in other departments, and listened to the "porcelain gossip" in the senior-officer toilets.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“... there were no clocks in the mansion, anywhere.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“God is high up and the Tsar is far away.”
― Jason Matthews, Palace of Treason

“He operated in a puerile, slimy world full of sly hints, insinuations.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

“Amazon”
― Jason Matthews, Shep Dreams Of Home

“The silver smokiness of a two-way mirror. Welcome to Sparrow School.”
― Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow