“He had only thought, and Wolsey had only thought, that the Emperor and Spain would be against it. Only the Emperor. He smiles in the dark, hands behind his head. He doesn't say which people, but waits for Liz to tell him. 'All women,' she says. 'All women everywhere in England. All women who have a daughter but not a son. All women who have lost a child. All women who have lost any hope of having a child. All women who are forty.”
― Wolf Hall
― Wolf Hall
“She had collided with an elk and died...At twenty-four minutes to eleven her heart had stopped pumping the blood around her body.
One single muscle in a single person's body. A speck of dust in time. And the world was dead. David stood next to her bed with his arms by his sides, the headache burning behind his forehead.
Here lay his whole future, everything good that he could even imagine would come from life. Here lay the last twelve years of his past. Everything gone; and time shrank to a single unbearable now.”
― Handling the Undead
One single muscle in a single person's body. A speck of dust in time. And the world was dead. David stood next to her bed with his arms by his sides, the headache burning behind his forehead.
Here lay his whole future, everything good that he could even imagine would come from life. Here lay the last twelve years of his past. Everything gone; and time shrank to a single unbearable now.”
― Handling the Undead
“David and Eva kissed again, their eyes telegraphing something about how it would be later that night when they were alone. Then Eva took Magnus' hand and they walked off, waving one last time. David remained on the sidewalk, watching them.
What if I never see them again...
The usual fear gripped him. God had been too good to him, there'd been a mistake, he had got more than he deserved. Now it would all be taken away. Eva and Magnus disappeared around the corner and an impulse told him to run after them, stop them. Say, "Come on. Let's go home. We'll watch Shrek, we'll play Monopoly, we...can't let ourselves be separated."
The usual fears, but worse than usual.”
―
What if I never see them again...
The usual fear gripped him. God had been too good to him, there'd been a mistake, he had got more than he deserved. Now it would all be taken away. Eva and Magnus disappeared around the corner and an impulse told him to run after them, stop them. Say, "Come on. Let's go home. We'll watch Shrek, we'll play Monopoly, we...can't let ourselves be separated."
The usual fears, but worse than usual.”
―
“We're coming to the end of the long, dark modern age. Slaughters of unnumbered human beings continue, but not among people who knew Spencer Tracy. Warfare persists, but the scale of battle is returning to something that the author of the Illiad would recognize. Maybe someday each combat casualty will rate the kind of mourning that Achilles did for Patroclus, except on television, and the saga of every Jessica Lynch will be an Odyssey or, anyway, a cover of People. There never will be peace, but we can have wars here, when we talk about our soldiers, we say, "Dey is only heros.”
― Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism
― Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism
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