The Book of Living and Dying Quotes

“Who was she, anyway? With her messy hair and her black-rimmed eyes? Even now, looking at her across the table, Sarah saw in Donna’s face the image of many young women, merging together, protean. At times distinct, familiar; at times blurred, as though suspended at the bottom of a swimming pool, her features wavering with the sunlight and wind over the water.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“The dream is always the same. I’m walking through the woods. It’s dark. I can barely see my own hands in front of my face. But somehow, I know which way to go, like I’ve been there before, like it exists in my memory from childhood or something. And then I see it—the oak tree. It stands out from the rest of the trees in the woods, like it’s backlit, a bright light all around it. And it’s as if I can feel it, like somehow I’m part of the tree.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“She moved toward the girl as in a trance, the pull irresistible, as if she was being drawn by some unseen hand to this image she had known only in photographs. All her teenage musings, all her childish fears would be quelled if only she could reach the girl.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“Her mind danced like a honeybee when she thought of the night, their reflected images stretching endlessly before them like an augury.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“There are those who believe that the dream world is the real world,” he said. “They believe that this world is an illusion or a trick.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“Sarah felt the familiar ache resonating in her chest, the warm buzz reaching her cheeks as the clouds of grief gathered. Would the hole in her heart ever heal? She had filled it with anything she could find—the cold fist of anger, the liquid drip of sorrow, the anesthetizing patch of drugs and alcohol—but still the hole whistled and gaped, refusing to mend.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“When she couldn’t remember she would write the names of the people on the back of the photos with a question mark. This seemed fitting. Wasn’t that all anyone left behind? A name and a question with no answer?”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“So she’d just stopped. Stopped hanging out. Stopped making herself available. Stopped answering the phone. Drifting away had proved easier than maintaining ties.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying

“The sugar maples blazed crimson against a concrete sky. Fall was her favourite time of year. It was bold and unforgiving. No apologies, no half-cloaked secrets like hushed voices in hospital rooms.”
― Natale Ghent, The Book of Living and Dying