The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

“That the smoke of the poppy is a drug primitive in its temptations, devastating in its effects, and reprehensible in its associations, both social and historical, ought among all decent citizens to be a commonplace.

True feeling is always circular—either circular, or paradoxical—simply because its cause and its expression are two halves of the very same thing! Love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love. Any man who disagrees with me has never been in love—not truly.”

My father always told me, when it comes to whores and fortune tellers, never give your real name.”

On the day of his departure his father advised him to keep his wits about him, to practice kindness, and to come home once he had seen enough of the world to know his place in it.

For example: he tells me my inheritance comprises only his fiddle and his shaving razor—saying that if a man is to make his way in the world, all he needs is a good shave and the means to make some music.

The man laughed. “That was your first mistake, then.” “No,” said Wells, “my last.”

“I like it very well indeed,” replied the boy. “It’s a perfect hive of contradictions! There is a newspaper, and no coffee house in which to read it; there is a druggist for prescriptions, but one can never find a doctor, and the hospital barely deserves its name. The store is always running out of either boots or socks, but never both at once, and all the hotels along Revell-street only serve breakfast, though they do so at all hours of the day!”

A woman fallen has no future; a man risen has no past.