Penni Russon > Quotes

“It was all so artificial. It was beautiful, but it did not belong to her. She was a tourist, an outsider, and she could only see the thin surface veneer of things; she couldn't get beneath it to the real heart of anything.
”
― Penni Russon, Undine

“She had never really believed in God. There didn't seem any point in it, and he just seemed so, well, unlikely. But now, a world that definitely had no God at all felt kind of... empty. It wasn't really God she wanted; it was the possibility of God.”
― Penni Russon, Breathe

“Will you be all right?"
Heater on twice, color contrast down, and keep hitting buttons on the extractor fan until it stops or I go mad. I think I can manage that.”
― Penni Russon, Breathe

“Don't wear yourself out Dad."
Is that your way of telling your old man to shut up?”
― Penni Russon, Breathe

“But you are not sure it is possible to outgrow the things that have built you from nothing into something.”
― Penni Russon, Only Ever Always

“I always listen to everything you say. You have very authoritative hair.”
― Penni Russon, Only Ever Always

“Clara, you ask too much. You are always asking for too much, even when you’re not asking for anything.”
― Penni Russon, Only Ever Always

“Dolores seems to dwell only just inside language, she makes sentences the way a potter works clay, squashing them any which way into shapes that please her.”
― Penni Russon, Only Ever Always

“In the period of my life that Fred and I had this conversation I was writing a thesis at Melbourne University as part of a masters in creative writing, entitled Melancholy Ever After, about the effect of melancholy on narrative structure in fairy tales.”
― Penni Russon, Only Ever Always