A Compass Error Quotes

“When one’s young, everything is a rehearsal. To be repeated ad lib, to be put right when the curtain goes up in earnest. One day you know that the curtain was up all the time. That was the performance.”
― Sybille Bedford, A Compass Error

“To the young, so much is known and unknown. Before: the mystery, the blueprint, the half-imagined, half-refused. Once on the other side: the always-known, the click into place, acceptance; the unthought unthinkable turned fact, the plunge accomplished, the ship afloat. (Or: revulsion; recoil; regression.) For Flavia the shock – the double shock of recognition was in the heart (pleasure itself still eluded her that day), was a lightening, a light slight puff of happiness such as persists sometimes after awaking from a serene although forgotten dream. She told herself (the mind would not turn off) how cosy, how reassuring, how nice”
― Sybille Bedford, A Compass Error