Devil's Day Quotes

“It’s a strange expression—to come to terms with death. As if there are concessions to be bargained for and won. But death takes all.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“Packing away a life is a slow, fragmented affair. Everyone is outlived by objects, everyone bequeaths an uncurated museum to the living.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“The Devil has been here since before anyone came, passing endlessly from one thing to another. He's in the rain and the gales and the wild river. He's in the trees of the Wood. He's the unexpected fire and the biter of dogs. He's the disease that can ruin a whole farm and the blizzard that buries a whole village. But at least here we can see him at work.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“I needed to see how quickly life went out. One moment everything, the next nothing. And there was nothing, afterwards. But I knew that already. I'd look at the porcelain dolls and the glass swans on the mantlepiece that Mam left behind and wait for them to tell me something. But they never did. Not even if I held them in my hand and closed my eyes. The dead were dead. That was why, the Devil said, I shouldn't waste the time I had while I was alive.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“The monks didn't like to go up on to the moors. There was something unwholesome about the place, they said. There were strange shapes far off on the ridges and sometimes noises under the peat. When they came to collect kindling and fuel for the abbey's fireplaces, they wouldn't go too deep into the Wood either. There was something worse than the wolves in there, something that always seemed determined to follow them out into the open.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“Decisions made without sentiment about what was junk and what was useful. Packing away a life is a slow, fragmented affair. Everyone is outlived by objects, everyone bequeaths an uncurated museum to the living.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“The Gaffer once told me how it was when he was a child and someone died in the Endlands. The relatives of the deceased would blacken one of their mules from tail to lips with wet peat and sent it wandering down the valley to let the other families know that death had paid a visit. When the mule was found, it was washed in the river and taken back to where it belonged. And with them they'd bring bread and meat and soul's cake. In those days, the Gaffer said, the body was not considered unclean or frightening and before it went to the undertaker's the loved one was laid out in the front room for touch and kisses. Yuck, says Adam. But think of it like this, I say: Death would have plenty of time with them. The least we could do was let them stay in the house with their family for a little while longer.

Special candles, thick as leeks, were placed at the head and the feet, and the floor was strewn with salt and rosemary. And then the soul's cake would be laid on the chest over the heart and the living would each take their share. Not a speck could be left, no hidden under shirt buttons or between the fingers of folded hands. It was a privilege of the dead to pass on with all their sins eaten away. The burden now rested with the living.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“Kat looked at them as they spoke, wanting to say something. She'd told me often enough that the nursery wasn't without its problems. It wasn't all singing and painting rainbows. But she believed that children were innocent parrots of their mothers' and fathers' prejudices. Wickedness wasn't innate.

Well, she hadn't seen what Lennie Sturzaker used to do to me.

No, some children are like pigs in a wood. Weaknesses to them are as pungent as truffles.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“autumn. I quite envy them really, the simple vessels they have to fill.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

“Living on the farms was one endless round of maintenance. Nothing was ever finished. Nothing was ever settled. Nothing. Everyone here died in the midst of repairing something. Chores and damage were inherited.”
― Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day