Mr Loverman Quotes

“Divorce: such a spiteful-sounding word – but such an appealing concept. Marriage: such a softly seductive word – but such a spiteful reality.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“God a-damn me the day I chose to enter this hellish so-called marriage instead of following my Morris-loving, sweet-loving, full-blooded, hot-blooded, pumping-rumping, throbbing organ of an uncontainable, unrestrainable, undetainable man-loving heart.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“I am an individual, specific, not generic.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“He turns to me, serious, grabs my wrist tight.
“What am I now? A Catholic priest you got to confess all of your sins to? If you start down that road, I got to reciprocate, and I ain’t so sure you can handle that. You want to know where this conversation will lead, my friend? A dead end, that’s where.
“Listen to me good, Barry. I have known you since 1947 when we was nippers. That’s sixty-four years, yuh hear? You and me has finally got a future to look forward to together, so let we not go digging up our past misdemeanors, right? Just sit back comfy and easy and listen to the one and only Miss Shirley Bassey and let we just enjoy the vibes, man, enjoy the vibes.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“Some folk have to react against something: parents, siblings, government, society. They think they have free will, when all they doing is wilfully opposing.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“In that moment, I wanted to tell this stranger, this Merle, this girl from the tiny island of Montserrat, that I had commensurate preferences too, but I couldn’t be a brave warrior like her.
I wanted to tell her about Morris.
I wanted to sing his name out into the night.
His name is Morris. He is my Morris and he always been my Morris. He’s a good-hearted man, a special man, a sexy man, a history-loving man, a loyal man, a man who appreciates a good joke, a man of many moods, a drinking man, and a man with whom I can be myself completely.
Yes, I was in the throes of a Malibu-and-Coke-soaked madness, a madness that could lead to the demise of my life as I’d hitherto known it. But I was on the verge.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“Truth is, both of us was desperate to be anything other than what we was.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“He’ll be moulded by America, that’s for sure, just by being there. He won’t even be aware it’s happening. He’ll be filled with the American sense of self-belief, and the sense of can-do, and the Harvard sense of entitlement.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“You lucky I ain’t taking a hammer to you, but you’re not worth a life sentence.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“Danny-Boy, I want to tell him, unlike you flawless teenagers, we adults can be contradictory fools. We fuck up. Sorry to fall off the Pedestal of Perfection, Sonny-Jim, but all we trying a-do is stop you from fucking up too.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“This is one of the pleasures of a lifelong friendship: so many of your memories are shared.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“Lord, how come she asking me this now? A colony of ants starts crawling all over my scalp, but I’m too afraid to attack them in case she interprets my discomfort. This is too much. Anything is a big word that can accommodate all things, and everything, and something that, yes, she needs to know eventually, but it ain’t easy giving voice to the love that brings shame.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“It’s only when you drive out of London that you get the sense that most of this country is made up of countryside: wide-open fields and a sky uninterrupted by buildings.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“Don’t need to love someone to be compassionate.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman

“She is the Sphinx guarding the city of Thebes. Head of a woman, body of a lioness, wings of an eagle, memory of an elephant, bite of a saltwater crocodile with 2,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, ready to snap my head off.”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman