“that life was daring to continue. Didn’t they know? Hadn’t they heard? Everything has changed, everything. And yet nothing has changed. Nothing. The day carries on as it would.”
― The Last Devil to Die
― The Last Devil to Die
“And how long, impossible question I know, but how long until we’re not capable of having this discussion? How many windows like this do we have left?’ Elizabeth can fool herself no more, can keep Stephen to herself no longer. The day she knew must arrive is here. She has been losing him a paragraph at a time, but the chapter is done. And the book is close to its end. Stephen, fully dressed and shaved, stands among his books. The urns and sculptures from his travels, things he found significant and beautiful, gathered over a lifetime. The awards, the photographs, old friends smiling on boats, boys at school dressed like men, Stephen on mountains, on desert digs, raising a glass in a far-off bar, kissing his wife on their wedding day. This room, this cocoon, every inch of it is his brain, his smile, his kindness, his friendships, his lovers, his jokes. His mind, fully on display. And he knows it is now lost.”
― The Last Devil to Die
― The Last Devil to Die
“There comes a point when you look at your photograph albums more often than you watch the news. When you opt out of time, and let it carry on doing its thing while you get on with yours. You simply stop dancing to the beat of the drum.”
― The Last Devil to Die
― The Last Devil to Die
“Everything I’ve done and everything I’ve been is present in the same place. But we still think the thing that has just happened, or is about to happen, we think that’s the most important thing. My memories aren’t my memories, my present isn’t present, it’s all the same thing . . .”
― The Last Devil to Die
― The Last Devil to Die
“That’s the thing about Coopers Chase. You’d imagine it was quiet and sedate, like a village pond on a summer’s day. But in truth it never stops moving, it’s always in motion. And that motion is ageing, and death, and love, and grief, and final snatched moments and opportunities grasped. The urgency of old age. There’s nothing that makes you feel more alive than the certainty of death.”
― The Last Devil to Die
― The Last Devil to Die
Kathi’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Kathi’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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