House of Names Quotes

“You must live with what you did,’ Leander said. ‘What you did is all you have.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“The memory of my name will last longer than the lives of many men.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“Murder makes us ravenous, fills the soul with satisfaction that is fierce and then luscious enough to create a taste for further satisfaction.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“I saw him trying to struggle and call out. But because of the robe, he could not move and his voice could not be heard. I caught his hair and pulled his head back. I showed him the knife, pointing it first towards his eyes until he flinched, before I stabbed him in the neck just beneath the ear, moving aside to avoid the jet of spurting blood, and then, pushing the blade further into his neck, I began to drag it slowly across his throat, slicing deep into him as blood flowed in easy, gurgling waves down his chest and into the water of the bath. And then he fell. It was done.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“He stopped going to his own bed, waiting instead until Leander was ready for bed and then going to the room with him, the dog once more in his wake. He began to look forward to the night, to what happened between them in these hours, and to the morning when they woke.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“There was a time, I know, when I felt rage and I felt sorrow. But now I have lost what leads up to rage and sorrow. Maybe the only reason I wander in these spaces has to do with some other feeling, or what is left of it. Maybe that feeling is love. There is someone whom I love still, or have loved and protected, but I cannot be sure of that. No name will come. Some words come, but not the words I want, which are the names. If I can say the names, I will know then whom I loved and I will find them, or know how to see them. I will lure them into the shadows when the time is right.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“We live in a strange time,’ Electra said. ‘A time when the gods are fading. Some of us still see them but there are times when we don’t. Their power is waning. Soon, it will be a different world. It will be ruled by the light of day. Soon it will be a world barely worth inhabiting. You should feel lucky that you were touched by the old world, that in that house it brushed you with its wings.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“I have been acquainted with the smell of death. The sickly, sugary smell that wafted in the wind towards the rooms in this palace. It is easy now for me to feel peaceful and content.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“I have an intimate relationship with silence and thus I am sure when it is safe for someone to whisper.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“Per un attimo mi ha colpito l'idea che gli dèi con noi facevano la stessa cosa: ci distraevano con finti conflitti, con l'urlo della vita, ci distraevano con alcune immagini di armonia, bellezza, amore e intanto ci guardavano con distacco e freddezza aspettando che finisse, che arrivasse lo sfinimento.
Stavano in disparte come stavamo in disparte noi. E, quando finiva, si stringevano nelle spalle. Non gliene importava più niente.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“Io invece ero limpida. Vivevo nella luce. Proiettavo ombre ma non vivevo nell'ombra.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names

“È stato il fuoco a portarmi la notizia, non gli dèi. Fra gli dèi ormai non ce n'è uno a offrirmi assistenza, a sorvegliare le mie azioni o a conoscere i miei pensieri. Non c'è più un dio al quale rivolgermi.
Vivo da sola nella tremante, solitaria consapevolezza che non è più il tempo degli dèi.”
― Colm Tóibín, House of Names