Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

Don’t scorn a polite appearance because many fools, snobs and scoundrels have that.

does life mainly evolve through small gradual changes, or through big catastrophic ones?

“If medical practitioners wanted to save lives,” said Baxter, “instead of making money out of them, they would unite to prevent diseases, not work separately to cure them.

You think you are about to possess what men have hopelessly yearned for throughout the ages: the soul of an innocent, trusting, dependent child inside the opulent body of a radiantly lovely woman.

Gross and depressingly true.

The imagination is, like the appendix, inherited from a primitive epoch when it aided the survival of our species, but in modern scientific industrial nations it is mainly a source of disease.

“I’m miserable too, Bella. I thought you and I were to marry.”

This is really weird considering that you said she had the mental age of a ten year old and called her a child just on the last page before this.

“Anything more than a day seems eternity to me.

A while after this I asked why he had suddenly made a will the day after Bella and I got engaged. He said, “To provide for her after my death. You won’t get rich for years, McCandless, however hard you work.” I accused him of planning to kill himself after our marriage. He shrugged and said he would have had nothing to live for after it.

I love it when I know I’m getting into a book designed to make me go “wtf” and yet I’m still stunned and going “wtf” every chapter. A good or bad thing, idk yet.

remember that the only sure thing we know about ageing is that misery and pain age folk faster than happiness does,

“Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police.

Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread.

“Good for a three-year-old?” asked Baxter. “She is still learning,” I said, returning the two pages.

I’m calling it quits here. DNFing at page 101.