Thinks . . . Quotes

“...my big depression. For six months I languished at the bottom of a deep hole, like the shaft of a waterless well, while kindly, puzzled people...peered down at me over the rim of the parapet and tried to cheer me up, or lowered drugs and advice in a bucket.”
― David Lodge, Thinks . . .

“I had some difficulties myself, even when I was a pious convent schoolgirl, with the notion of petitionary prayer. I used to pester the old nun, Sister Rita, who took us for Religious Instruction in the Fifth Form, with casuistical questions, like ‘What does God do if a farmer is praying for rain for his crops at the same time we’re praying for fine weather for the School Sports Day?’ Or more boldly, ‘Were German Catholics wasting their time praying for victory in the Second World War?’ ‘These things are mysteries, Helen Driscoll,’ Sister Rita would say, going a little red, ‘and will be revealed to us in the life to come.’ That kind of prayer now seems to me the purest superstition, and yet I miss it. It gave one something positive to do in threatening situations, it gave relief. I hate this state of just waiting helplessly to see how the dice will fall.”
― David Lodge, Thinks...

“prayers to answer? Why would he cure my cancer, and let other poor buggers with the same condition die, not to mention the kids with leukaemia in the children’s ward? Once he starts intervening in the course of nature, how does he decide when to stop?”
― David Lodge, Thinks...

“I can see myself acquiring bad habits from living here. My little house is equipped with a TV, and I've watched a lot this week. At home I seldom switch on before 'The Nine O'Clock News', and usually it's later than that, for an arts documentary or a film. This week I've been watching TV while eating my solitary dinner, and leaving it on afterwards because when I switched it off the silence seemed so deathly, and I can't stand listening to music on my tinny transistor radio. I've seen all kinds of programmes I never normally watch, soaps and sitcoms and police series, consuming them steadily and indiscriminately like a child eating its way through a bag of mixed sweets. For simple mindless distraction you can't beat early evening television. No scene lasts more than thirty seconds, and the stories jump from character so fast that you hardly notice how cardboard-thin they are.”
― David Lodge, Thinks . . .