Corelli's Mandolin

by Louis de Bernières

‘The half-forgotten island of Cephallonia rises improvidently and inadvisedly from the Ionian Sea; it is an island so immense in antiquity that the very rocks themselves exhale nostalgia and the red earth lies stupefied not only by the sun, but by the impossible weight of memory.

stunningly descriptive

Only an island as lackadaisical as this would allow itself to be infested by such troupes of casual and impertinent goats.’

classic

And the priest will say, ‘This is a matter of the Devil and not of God,’ and I will reply, ‘Did God not make the Devil? Is He not omniscient? How can I be blamed for what He knew would occur from the very commencement of time?’

Hmmmmmmm

as the human race is incapable of learning anything from history.’

Truth is we ignore history and repeat it voraciously

I am not a religious man, I am a materialist, but even I can see that priests are a kind of bacteria that enable people to find life digestible.

my thoughts exactly

There is nothing so good and lovely as when man and wife in their home dwell together in unity of mind and disposition.’

one day

‘Symmetry is only a property of dead things.

imperfection can be perfect

a few sagging houses whose stones had lost their mortar and were held together only by gravity and habit,

great line