The Paris Express Quotes

“There isn’t a train I wouldn’t take, No matter where it’s going. EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, “TRAVEL” (1921)”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“A secret of mothers: We enjoy it when our offspring are under the weather because it draws them back to us again, reverses time a bit, spins the hands anticlockwise. For a little while they need us as they once did every minute of the day, and we surrender reminiscently to that sweet rush.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“Our flesh keeps our memories,” Charles-Louis Philippe wrote in Bubu de Montparnasse, his 1901 tale of street life; “we travel through the present with all our baggage.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“Time, just a little more time! But it was never his to hold, to hide from the great thief, death. It’s all borrowed, Jules-Félix realises, every second of it.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“The smoker swallows her first gulp with pleasure. “Putain, that’s strong.” “Slow,” the coffee seller advises. “Morning coffee is prayer.” “Is what?” “You sit, sip little by little. Thank your god.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“The Brits, as much as they lack all systematic thought, do have a knack for practical inventions,”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“Mado’s gorge rises. She doesn’t want to know about the little girl or the nurse or any of these people whose knees are pushing against hers. Their muddy clogs, their stinks of sweat and sausage and tobacco. These people, her people—she’s not naive about them. Their ignorance, their prejudices, the daily grind, drags them down. What does it matter who these particular individuals are? Today’s random selection from the millions of working folk who shell out far more than they can afford to be trucked along the rails of France like sheep to market.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“Better prepare and prevent than repair and repent.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“could choose to move away and settle on the coast, where he could smell this salt breeze every day. Is that what a holiday is, a glimpse of another, larger life?”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“anticipate the future as if it were too slow in coming, as if to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to halt its rapid flight. We are so foolish that we wander in times that are not ours, without thinking of the only one that is. BLAISE PASCAL, PENSÉES (1670)”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express

“The young lady starts to type again, with remarkable speed. Henry shuts his eyes and leans his head back, trying to absent himself and let the atmosphere seal up the rip he’s torn in it.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express: A Novel