Coventry Quotes

“Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry

“I like being mistaken for someone useful.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry

“It is not as though she's greedy for happiness, but she wishes that she'd been able to recognize it completely when she had it.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry

“The good thing about books is that they remain themselves. What happens in their pages stays there. Harriet does not like the idea of the story bleeding through into real life. She trusts a story, and doesn’t trust real life. But what makes her trust a story is the knowledge that it will stay where it is, that she can visit it but that there is no chance it will visit her.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry

“She doesn’t want to think of that woman, not now. She’s just one more person who hasn’t kept her promise; just one more person who hasn’t returned to Harriet.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry

“I suppose,” says Jeremy, “what I don’t like is that the moment you fix something, it starts to break down again, that an engine works against itself. By its very act of running, it weakens itself, tries to come undone. Everything is slowly worked loose by the vibrations of the moving engine.”
Just like us, thinks Harriet.”
― Helen Humphreys, Coventry