Catie

“I'd stopped wishing that Gareth hadn't signed up, but I couldn't stop thinking that he was walking towards death. The notion kept me awake at night and I'd watch him sleep. It had me touching him unnecessarily, and at odd times. I wanted to know what he thought about everything, and I tired him out with questions about good and evil, and whether we English were one and Germans the other. I was trying to uncover more layers so that if he died I would be left with more.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“Poetry seemed to steady his gaze, and sometimes he looked at me with such intent that I imagined something of meaning might have got through.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“Was I better? Before Shropshire I'd felt broken, as though I would fall should the scaffold of my work be removed. I didn't feel that now, but there was a fine crack through the middle of me, and I suspected it might never mend. I remembered Lizzie apologising to Mrs. Lloyd the first time she stayed to chat, for the chip in the cup.
'A chip doesn't stop it fro holding tea,' Mrs. Lloyd had said.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“The more accurate a map is, the more powerful we understand it to be- that is, the world is what makes the map real. But Otto G. Lindberg achieved something even more spectacular, even if it was by serendipity. His map made part of the world real...”
― Peng Shepherd, The Cartographers