Pastoral Quotes

“The group of people in front of her was jovial and paid her no attention. The group behind was much the same. She was alone without being alone.”
― Andre Alexis, Pastoral

“It wasn't the finality of death that surprised him. It was the ghostly persistence of life. As if to say, it isn't the dead who haunt the living; it's the living who haunt the dead.”
― André Alexis, Pastoral

“most of the significant moments in her life were really significant only long after they had happened.”
― Andre Alexis, Pastoral

“because he was the man he was, one strong thing came out of the confusion: love. ‘Love’ had caused him trouble in the recent past, but he went with it anyway, stubbornly holding to the idea that ‘love’ — whenever and wherever it touched down — was always right.”
― Andre Alexis, Pastoral

“It occurred to him that Barrow itself was neither good nor evil but was, instead, animated by whatever it was that animated the land, the thing that animated each and every one of them and, so, revealed itself in its hiddenness. In fact, one felt, or he felt as he walked – blasphemous though the thought was – that God was only an aspect of the hidden, an idea brought into being by man in order to point to a deeper thing that had no name and reigned beyond silence.”
― André Alexis, Pastoral

“Dutch courage, people called it, though no one could tell him why the Dutch should be known for such a sensible way of dealing with distress. He thought it sensible, anyway. What else could you do but drink or pray?”
― André Alexis, Pastoral

“Death was no more than the termination of lively functions, the collective refusal to go on of a group of organs that had, moments before, collectively refused to desist.”
― André Alexis, Pastoral

“so little of what anything means comes through words.”
― Andre Alexis, Pastoral