The Tuscan Child Quotes

“When the world has gone mad, we must help each other when we can.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“Then how can prayers be answered if you do not call upon the saints to help? God is obviously too busy to do everything alone.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“At least he was useful in some ways. He made good cheese.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“Sure. Why not?” he said. “A cup of tea. That’s what everyone drank all through the war. A bomb was dropped and everyone said, ‘It’s all right. Have a cup of tea.’” And he laughed.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“How quickly life can change. Well, maybe it was time that it changed again. I was in a beautiful place, staying with a kind woman, and I was going to enjoy myself, whatever the outcome was.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“When the world has gone mad, we must help each other when we can. Most of my neighbours are good and share what little they have.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“How much can happen in so short a time,”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“fagioli al fiasco sotto la cenere.” She handed him a bowl of what looked like white paste. He didn’t understand the Italian words in her dialect, except that “fagioli” was beans, and this did not look like beans—more like oatmeal. He didn’t think he’d ever seen an oat when he was in Florence, and certainly nobody ate oatmeal for breakfast. “What is this?” he asked. “It is made of white beans cooked in water and then cooked again with olive oil, rosemary, sage, and garlic in the coals of the fire all night. We put it in a Chianti bottle and cook it slowly in the embers. Then we mash”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“But it was that core group of popular girls who moved in a pack, like wolves, and loved to pick on anyone weaker than them who made it quite clear that I did not belong.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“To realise that one has nobody in the world—that is a sobering thought.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“All is well. We are tested and we survive, and life will be good again.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“I realised that everyone present resented the loss of the Hall as much as my father had done. It represented the passing of an old way of life, of the security of knowing one’s place. I found it very touching.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“Guido”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“This war has robbed us all of what we loved,” she said,”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“When I was a young child, the village boys would come out here with sticks to knock down the biggest and best conkers in their prickly green cases and then would thread a string through them and harden them for endless fights.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“She was doing what the English did. When anything embarrassing or emotional threatened to come up, one discussed the weather. Always a safe topic.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“It’s not fair. But then nothing has been fair for a long time, has it? All those chaps I flew with who went down in flames. All those poor sods sitting at dinner in their houses who were blasted to pieces by doodlebugs. And the poor, damned wretches in the concentration camps. None of them deserved to die.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“England. A long way away. A heathen land where they do not have the true faith.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“Don’t look so sad,” she said, touching my cheek. “All is well. We are tested and we survive, and life will be good again.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“Almost twenty, I thought. And here I am at twenty-five still thinking I am young and have plenty of time to decide what to do with my life.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“fagioli al fiasco sotto la cenere.” She handed him a bowl of what looked like white paste.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“I want you to know that our beautiful boy is safe. He is hidden where only you can find him.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“When the world has gone mad, we must help each other when we can. Most of my neighbours are good and share what little they have. When Benito snared a rabbit, he gave us some of it to make the good broth you are eating. And when I came home this morning, I passed Signora Gucci and she saw the mushrooms I had found.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“expected to find you dead. But I entrusted you to the care of Saint Rita.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“Oh, come on, Joanna. It’s the nineteen seventies. Women have abortions all the time. It’s no big thing anymore.” “It is for the baby,” I said. “And it would be for me. My father would never”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“medal. A religious medal to some kind of saint.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“The Society of Saint George,” she said. “A devotional society of the men of this town. It is an honour to be invited to join.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“this sweet and kind woman how it felt to have lost my baby. “Don’t look so sad,” she said, touching my cheek. “All is well. We are tested and we survive, and life will be good again.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“what I did, I didn’t want”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child

“It still had that wonderful smell that old churches have: part damp, part old hymn books, and the lingering scent of burned-out candles.”
― Rhys Bowen, The Tuscan Child