The Feast Quotes

“What kind of books do you like?'
'I like books about nice people. And a story where it all comes out right in the end.'
'But Nancibel, that's not true to life.'
'I daresay not. Why should it be?'
'You're an escapist.'
'Pardon?'
'You don't want the face facts.'
'Not in story books, I don't. I face plenty between Monday and Saturday without reading about them.'
Bruce sighed.
'I don't think a book ought to be sad,' said Nancibel, 'unless it's a great classical book, like 'Wuthering Heights.'
'Oh! You've read 'Wuthering Heights'. Did you like it?'
'Yes, but I didn't think it was the right part for Merle Oberon. Running about with bare feet, well she was hobbling most of the time. You could see she wasn't used to it.'
'Oh... you mean the film.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“A child's questions ought always to be answered honestly and sincerely or else it gets a compress.'
'Complex. I am answering you honestly.'
'Am I a bastard?'
Sir Henry was startled, but after a moment's thought said, 'Yes. But that's not a word you should use. Where did you learn it?'
'Shakespeare.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“Each guest had retired, as an animal retires with a bone to the back of its cage, to chew over some single obsession.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“She writes this biographical fiction, or fictional biography, whichever you like to call it. She takes some juicy scandal from the life of a famous person, and writes a novel round it. Any facts that don't suit her go out. Any details she wants to invent come in. She's saved the trouble of creating plot and characters, and she doesn't have to be accurate because it's only a novel, you know.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“MYSELF: You have never understood. My integrity means more to me than happiness.

CHRISTINA: You have none. There is no such thing. You are not a whole person. Nobody is. We are members one of another. An arm has no integrity if it is amputated. It is nothing unless it is part of a body, with a heart to pump the blood through it and a brain to guide it. You have no more integrity than a severed arm might have.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“[W]hen she was dying she asked me to promise never to leave Father. I couldn't refuse. It was the last thing she said. She was worried over what would happen to him. So you see!'
'How could she condemn you to such a life?'
'Well, you see, she had a rather gloomy idea of life. She thought we are all born to suffer and the more we suffer now the less we shall hereafter. She thought it was wrong to be happy. I expect she worked all that out because she was married to Father.' (116)”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast