Mark

“What frightened him was how much of his life he had lived without knowing who he was or what he was doing. It caused him to feel an inner trembling, and he could not quite find the words—for himself—to even put it exactly as he sensed it. But he sensed that he had lived his life in a way that he had not known. This meant there had been a large blindspot directly in front of his eyes. It meant that he did not understand, not really at all, how others had perceived him. And it meant that he did not know how to perceive himself.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

“Edith and Olive and me have talked it over and we want to go and make aeroplanes.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Put Out More Flags

“She had that look - scared and sort of paralysed but frantic underneath - that girls got when they could think of only the one thing. It was a look that told him it would be her first time.”
― John Banville, Christine Falls

“In a library in a staid South Coast resort of retirees ”
― Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart