Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie #6)

by Kate Atkinson

He supposed that anarchy, like sex, was best left to the young, as they were blissfully blind to the consequences of both.

it was easier to believe in the devil than it was in God. The devil was everywhere, whereas God was, clearly, nowhere to be found.

All that industry in the slavish service of humans! Bees were so smart you would think they would have rebelled by now.

In Ben’s opinion, if you spent too long trying to look on the bright side you eventually became dazzled and couldn’t see anything properly at all.

He suffered from an appalling kind of mental lassitude, not to mention a never-ending premonition of doom and an ability to catastrophize everything under the sun.

Same

Miltons didn’t go up in flames, they rotted slowly, giving themselves back to the earth in exchange for everything they had plundered from it over the centuries.

The so-called “golden years” (really should be called the “rust years”) came attended by a retinue of unfriendly ailments. Sooner or later, Jackson supposed—if he was spared long enough—he would make the acquaintance of them all.

It would, after all, not be so very unpleasant to be relieved of the burden of being oneself.

“Leave no book unread”