Lilac Ink Quotes

“Guard over to the Navy, just in case. We spoke to this colored fellow as well—he was the janitor at the Coast Guard station—and he told us he would love to join the service, as he can swim like a fish, but he wouldn’t be permitted because of the segregation laws, so he had to be happy mopping floors and polishing brass. Nunez thought it was a good example of how the US services would be stronger and better able to fight without segregation.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“There had been a lot of talk in the press at the time about Hitler snubbing Owens because he was Black, but since Owens was never invited to the White House afterwards, and had to take the freight elevator to the parade in his honour in New York – he wasn’t allowed through the front doors of the Waldorf Astoria hotel – Owens would be right to think he didn’t need to go abroad to witness discrimination.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“wars were thought up by old men and fought by young ones, and doctors like me are left to pick up the pieces, literally.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“Imagine doing something you are passionate about and feeling fulfilled, getting into bed tired every night after spending your energy on something that matters to you. Wouldn’t that be something?”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“alanna”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“I know your parents will forgive you, whatever you do. That’s what parents are for – they have to love you, however annoying you are.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“Agnes was so inclined to see the badness in everyone, maybe it was best not to ask.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“He’d seen life in Knocknashee in all its forms and knew that death is a great leveller; it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have, it’s coming for everyone in the end.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“He's very funny, Dr Warrington. He says each child in the polio ward is allowed two minutes of an organ recital every morning. That’s what he called our complaining about all our aches and pains. He used to encourage us to be cross, or sad, or frustrated, or downright grumpy – he said it was good to let it all out. He even let us say one bad word about the polio once a month – that was a very funny day – and then no more. He said complaining was a bad habit we shouldn’t cultivate.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“Dr Warrington says it’s important to rise above the polio. He says some people let their illness define who they are, that they allow the world to see them through the lens of a disease, that they even like the attention it brings, but mixed in with the attention is pity, and that’s not something that does any good. Dr Warrington encourages all his young patients to stand up and be counted. We had polio, that’s a fact and can’t be changed, but he drilled it into us, ‘You have polio, you are not Polio with a capital P. You’re a Person with a capital P, with something to contribute to the world. Don’t let the world see you as a Polio Victim and not a Person. Don’t let it win.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“Dr Warrington told them how, as the biggest department store in Cork, it had been destroyed by the British the night they burnt the city to the ground in 1920 as a punishment for the rebellious actions of the IRA; but the Corkonians were not called the Rebel County for nothing and had built it back up again.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“St Jude. The patron saint of hopeless cases.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“The classroom was still. It was hard to imagine that all day long, the sounds of children’s happy voices filled the dry, dusty space. She wiped the board, closed the damper on the pot-bellied stove – there was a slight chill in the air, though the day was sunny and bright – and mopped up an ink spill on Mikey’s desk.”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“bookcase, painted with a red poppy, that her mother had made for her; she fetched it”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink

“incentivised”
― Jean Grainger, Lilac Ink