Toby's Room Quotes

“she lived a life almost obsessively devoted to triviality. She'd turned into a pond skater, not because she didn't know what lay beneath the surface, but precisely because she did.”
― Pat Barker, Toby's Room

“As if you cope with loss by ingesting the dead person”
― Pat Barker, Toby's Room

“Lying between the sheets, she felt different; her body had turned into bread dough, dough that's been kneaded and pounded till it's grey, lumpen, no yeast in it, no lightness, no prospect of rising. Her arms lay stiff by her sides. When, finally, she drifted off to sleep, she dreamt she was on her knees in a corner of the room, trying to vomit without attracting the attention of the person who was asleep on the bed. Her eyes wide open in the darkness, she tried to cast off the dream, but it stayed with her till morning.”
― Pat Barker, Toby's Room

“I had him in my cab once.

Who? Neville asked

Rupert Brooke. He was good, him. "There's some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England".

That would be the bit with my nose under it; just fucking drive, will you?”
― Pat Barker, Toby's Room