Peta Lee

“Bout a month ago. She came in Boxing Day but I put her out. She was begging people, not even tapping, but begging for drink.”
“She can’t have been disrupting ye, surely?” asked Maureen.
“See those old swines over there?” He gestured to his only customers. The old men heard him and their chat fell silent.
The barman raised his voice. “They were asking what they would get for their money. Auld swines, playing on the lassie’s weakness for the drink.” He lowered his voice. “That’s pensioners for ye — they can smell a bargain a mile off,” he muttered, as if the bargain-hunting skill of the elderly was an unspoken universal truth.”
― Denise Mina, Exile

“On the forever days in the forever dark, Eli’s voice had held Adrian together.”
― John Hart, Redemption Road

“I’ve thought of all the times when we could have forestalled damage to the children, but the truth is we were damaged ourselves. Even if we had worked that out, it wouldn’t have been much use. Those early wounds run deep.

Eve had been ignored as a child, controlled but neglected; longing for freedom and longing for affection, she was ridiculously generous with both, and I don’t just mean Martin. She trusted everyone. How would she have recognized cruelty when she was determined to love everyone she met?

Melly swapped one tyrant for another, her father for her husband; it’s hard to know who caused the most damage, especially as she was hell-bent on damaging herself. When you are anorexic, it actually does something to your vision; you can’t assess what you see properly. I heard that on the radio yesterday and I wanted to tell her, but I’m not sure if that would help; not now.

I was damaged by greed: my own. My grandfather told me that anything was possible; it wasn’t his fault that I believed him. I thought I could manage it all – work, marriage, kids, writing, being scared. That was wrong, or worse, half right. He forgot to add that anything is possible, but not on your own. He might have thought that was completely obvious; I grew up in an African village, after all. I should have asked for help when I needed it. He told me to walk slowly and he was right. I might have noticed what was there in front of me. You can’t blame Melly for not seeing things properly, when I wasn’t watching either.”
― Jane Shemilt, Little Friends

“Scratching their fingernails on blackboards of futility.”
― John Sandford, Field of Prey