Heat Wave Quotes

“She's been surprised by weather, these last weeks. By its versatility and by the grandeur of its effects... A primitive and elemental form of time untamed by Greenwich or the Gregorian calendar.”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave

“Pauline’s own mother did not read her daughter’s face. Perhaps she did not care for what she saw there. More probably, the language and references were not ones she understood. Pauline’s mother spent her life in desperate evasion of everything that she termed tiresome. Emotional difficulties above all were tiresome. If you structured your life with sufficient caution you could avoid these, and when Pauline’s mother saw that her daughter was not doing so, indeed had apparently laid herself open to tiresomeness with every move, she turned her head away and ignored the problem - presumably lest she herself become infected.”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave

“Her own mother, she realises, did not much care for children. She saw them simply as an essential accessory if you were to be fully paid-up member of society. They were a credential, along with the mortgage and the pension. You married, you secured an income and a house, you had children - in her case, one child. And in due course your own child too gave birth, thus conferring upon you genetic respectability in the eyes of the world.”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave

“I don’t subscribe to any set of religious beliefs, but that doesn’t mean I reject the concept of religion. It’s got far too strong a track record.”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave

“Maurice’s egotism is not overly apparent. He is not conspicuously self-absorbed. He does not talk all that much about himself or his concerns. Indeed, he probes other people about theirs. He will interrogate, with that aloof, amused expression: ‘why do you think that? ‘What made you do that?’ Maurice’s egotism is the more subtle version - that of implacable purpose. Only when you know Maurice well - when you have had an occasion to observe his habits over time- only then do you see that he practises a system of relentless manipulation. All those in his orbit do what Maurice requires that they should do, to the greater convenience of Maurice. It is a brilliant operation.”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave

“Maurice’s egotism in to overly apparent. He is not conspicuously self-absorbed. He does not talk all that much about himself or his concerns. Indeed, he probes other people about theirs. He will interrogate, with that aloof, amused expression: ‘why do you think that? ‘What made you do that?’ Maurice’s egotism is the more subtle version of- that of implacable purpose. Only when you know Maurice well - when you have had an occasion to observe his habits over time- only then do you see that he practises a system of relentless manipulation. All those in his orbit do what Maurice requires that they should do, to the greater convenience of Maurice. It is a brilliant operation.”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave

“The building appears to be locked still into the early nineteenth century (…) There is sits, ticked snug into the fields. It could have simply grown of its own accord, you feel - made from the very bones of this land. It is an emancipation of a time and a place. The truth is that World’s End is suspended in this landscape like a space capsule (…)”
― Penelope Lively, Heat Wave