All Things Cease to Appear Quotes

“There was no disguise for real love, she thought, and suddenly understood all that she did not have.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“Her mother had told her that when she was a girl. Whenever you’re in trouble, just remember you’re your own best friend.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“She chose to deny his true nature, just as his own mother did, contriving logical excuses for illogical acts, or reasonable grounds for unreasonable behavior, sometimes even blaming themselves for his failures. Poor George! He was overtired, overworked, overpressured – he just needs rest, to be left alone! and George never failed to exploit their misunderstanding.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“The thing about houses: they chose their owners, not the other way around. And this house had chosen them.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“wilderness—wild and brutal and glorious—”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“Maybe killing comes naturally to people, an instinct nobody likes to admit, a survival reflex inherited from our Neanderthal cousins. So maybe it’s the other stuff, the good manners that supposedly make us human, that are the real aberrations.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“That was of no consequence now, but you don’t easily forget the people you grew up with, and she made a point of listening carefully to him,”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“She said most people were good on the inside, where it mattered. You have to give them a chance to show their goodness, she used to say. Some people need more time, that’s all.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“Questa è la fattoria Hale.
Ecco la vecchia stalla per la mungitura, l’entrata buia che dice Vieni a cercarmi.
Ecco la banderuola, la catasta di legna.
Ecco la casa, echeggiante di storie.
È presto. Il falco vola lento nel cielo sgombro. Una sottile piuma blu volteggia nel vuoto. L’aria è fredda, limpida. La casa è silenziosa, come la cucina, il divano di velluto blu, la piccola tazza da tè bianca.
Da sempre la fattoria canta per noi, le sue famiglie perdute, i suoi soldati e le mogli. Durante la guerra, quando arrivarono con le baionette, entrando con la forza, gli stivali infangati sulle scale. Patrioti. Banditi. Mariti. Padri. Dormivano nei letti freddi. Razziavano la cantina in cerca di barattoli di pesche sciroppate e barbabietole da zucchero. Accendevano grandi fuochi nel campo, e le fiamme si contorcevano, schioccando alte verso il cielo. Fuochi che ridevano. Le facce calde brillavano e le mani erano in tasca, al riparo. Arrostivano un maiale e strappavano la carne dolce e rosea dall’osso. Dopo, si succhiavano via il grasso dalle dita, un sapore familiare, strano.
Ce ne sono stati altri – molti – che hanno rubato, smantellato e saccheggiato. Perfino i tubi di rame, perfino le mattonelle di ceramica. Quello che potevano prendere, prendevano. Hanno lasciato solo i muri, i pavimenti spogli. Il cuore pulsante in cantina.
Noi aspettiamo. Siamo pazienti. Aspettiamo notizie. Aspettiamo che ci venga detto qualcosa. Il vento sta provando a farlo. Gli alberi ondeggiano. È la fine di qualcosa; lo sentiamo. Presto sapremo.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“Beauty depends on the unseen, George quoted the artist, the visible upon the invisible.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“Inness painted from memory, which is to say that he didn't paint what he saw, but what he remembered. There's a difference. He believed memory was a lens to the soul. It's not the details that matter - the veins on a leaf, say- so much as the implied detail, such as the changing light, the wind, the lone peasant in the distance the sense that something else is going on, some deeper possibilitly ....”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear

“Something kept them together, frustration possibly. Like they were two parts of a troubling equation that neither could find the answer to. It was out there somewhere, in infinity, she often thought. Maybe they’d never find it.”
― Elizabeth Brundage, All Things Cease to Appear