The Sunlight Pilgrims Quotes

“When grown-ups hear a little dark door creaking in their hearts they turn the telly up. They slug a glass of wine. They tell the cat it was just a door creaking. The cat knows. It jumps down from the sofa and walks out of the room. When that little dark door in a heart starts to go click-clack click-clack click-clack click-clack so loudly and violently their chest shows an actual beat - well, then they say they've got bad cholesterol and they try to quit using butter, they begin to go for walks.
When the tiny dark door in her heart creaks open, she will walk right through it.
She will lie down and inside her own heart like a bird in the night.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“...the child of a wolf may not feel like she has fangs until she finds herself facing the moon, but they are still there the whole time regardless.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“Now he knows something he did not know before—there is a totality to silence. It makes his bones ache.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“I'm going to draw up a human-rights contract that says everyone on earth must agree we are here as caretakers of the planet, first and foremost.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“. She focuses, trying to absorb the suns’ energy deep into her cells so when they descend into the darkest winter for 200 years, in the quietest minutes, when the whole world experiences a total absence of light — she will glow, and glow, and glow.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“She will lie down and sleep inside her own heart like a bird in the night.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“I was taught how to by the sunlight pilgrims, they’re from the islands furthest north. You can drink light right down into your chromosomes, then in the darkest minutes of winter, when there is a total absence of it, you will glow and glow and glow.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“she reaches a pale arm up into the sky and polishes the moon”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“The girls changing in the gym watched her from the other side of the room the first time she went in, and one of the nuns was sitting there as well, just because Stella was there. They took her into a meeting in school and she had to say in advance that she wasn't a lesbian, or they wouldn't have let her even try to use the girls' changing room. They asked her if she was still a Christian. She explained that her family are not religious. They asked her what she knew of damnation. She asked them what they knew of autonomy. They asked her how she knew that word. She asked if they had met her mother. They said they would pray for her. She said it was not necessary. They asked if she might feel different in a few months, or if perhaps she would simply change for gym in the janitor's cupboard. She said she'd felt like this her whole life and no amount of praying was going to change it and she could use the janitor's cupboard to change, but she was a person, not a broom. They said she needed to find Jesus. She asked if it was like finding Wally? Only one nun knew what she meant. That little drawing in those old comic strips her mum had, when you look for the dweeby guy in the stripy hat.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“It’s all borrowed: bricks; bodies; breathing — it’s all on loan! Eighty years on the planet if you’re lucky; why do they say if you’re lucky? Eighty years and people trying to get permanent bits of stone before they go, as if permanence were a real thing. Everyone has been taken hostage.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims

“She is Little Red Riding Hood and her feet will walk her through the forest to the Big Bad Wolf and he will wear a frilly gown and, instead of letting him eat her, she will hack his head off with an axe. It's a foregone conclusion.”
― Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims