Pat

“We drank our coffee the Russian way. That is to say we had vodka before it and vodka afterwards.”
― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing

“Old Prague was a story-book city caked in grime: ancient, soot-blackened. History lived in every detail: in the deerstalker rooftops and the blue-sparking trams. He wandered the streets in disbelief, photographing everything, images from Kafka crowding into his head. With the turn of every corner it came back to him: the special frisson you get behind enemy lines.”
― Philip Sington, Zoia's Gold

“All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?"
I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct.”
― Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing

“I have found that in fiction one is freer to speak the truth, if only because in fiction the truth is not expected or required. You may easily disguise it, so that it is only recognized much later, when the story and the characters have faded into darkness.”
― Philip Sington