The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce, #9)

by Alan Bradley

Oh, for the good old days, I thought, when Death was an everyday equal and not to be padlocked away like some dim-witted relative whom nobody wanted to see or spend time with.

This reminds me of when Pastor Paul talked about the unwillingness of current society to face death.

“You are amazing, Dogger!” I clapped my hands together. “Thank you, Miss Flavia,” he said. “ ‘Amazing’ is a word for wizards. I prefer to think of myself as merely practical.” Because Dogger’s gentle rebukes were always as warm as honey, I treasured them. I vowed never to use the word again.

She was being ironic, I was quite sure of it. Daffy had once explained to me that irony consisted of words from another world: that they did not seem to mean what you thought they meant, which was a contradiction in itself. “They’re words from the other side of the looking-glass,” Daffy told me, “and ought always to be answered as such.”

I threw back my shoulders and straightened my back. “Don’t slouch,” Daffy was always telling me, “otherwise you’ll look like me.” My sister affected a scholarly slouch of which she was particularly proud. “Bent under the burden of knowledge,” she was fond of saying. “A cripple for culture.”