The Golden Tresses of the Dead Quotes

“As we stepped forth side by side into the darkness, toward the waiting car, I thought of what a strange world it was, where life was lived pressed so tightly cheek to cheek with death: with so little space between, that they might well be one and the same thing.

But in the end, when you stop to think about it, we are, after all, no more than mere particles of dust, drifting alone together through eternity, and so it is pleasant to think that we have—in this way or that, for better or for worse—reached out and touched one another.

That, in the end, is what chemistry is all about, isn't it?”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Alone in my room, I pondered the evidence. A perfect phrase. I would jot it down for future use.

Like it or not, there are times when you need to be alone; times when you need to be lonely; times when you need to need other people.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“A church is a wonderful place for a wedding, surrounded as it is by the legions of the dead, whose listening bones bear silent witness to every promise made—and broken—at the altar. Dead now, every last one of them, including the man who invented the rule about not putting your elbows on the dinner table.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Memories, I was coming to realize, can be sharper than daggers.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Humility is a most excellent barometer," he said, "and ought to be looked for in all those we are made to look up to.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“I called Miss Daphne, but she says she doesn't want 'er tea. She's got 'er nose stuck in a book. Useless, I think it's called, by some woman named Joyce.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Sometimes, when Fate deals you into a game you weren't expecting, you can only play your cards to the best of your ability.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“We who lose parents are one, I thought. We all of us are as brothers and sisters of a single blood.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“It's astonishing what the human heart will do to make allegiances. Loneliness is a kind of glue that can bind us to the most unlikely strangers.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Like it or not, there are times when you need to be alone; times when you need to be lonely; times when you need to need other people.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“It’s all so complicated,” she said again. “All so infernally complicated.” “It’s about money, isn’t it?” I asked. This was no great leap of deduction. All great problems, when whittled down to their root, were about money. No matter how tangled they seemed on the surface, the bottom was always banknotes.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“His was a kind of gentleness which, I think, cannot be learned and cannot be taught.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“I found myself wondering if, by whistling about whistling while you work while you were actually working, you would cause some odd bit of the universe, in some unknown dimension, to fold in upon itself—rather like a Klein bottle, which has no inside or outside—causing you to disappear up your own posterior in a cloud of probably invisible orange smoke.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“On listening to Gute Nacht Aus Schuberts Winterreise

Great music has much the same effect upon humans as cyanide, I managed to think: It paralyzes the respiratory system.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“O, how I wanted to hug him! O, how I wanted to pour our my affection! But there are times, I was learning, when one must not, on any account, give in to impulse. It was, I suppose, what they mean by the whole idea of "being British": holding oneself in check for the greater good; substituting the encouraging word for the crushing embrace.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“It is the hallmark of the beast in us,” Dogger continued, “which requires a modicum of truth in our transgressions, no matter how finely distilled; no matter how thinly diluted.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“But in the end, when you stop to think about it, we are, after all, no more than mere particles of dust, drifting along together through eternity, and so it is pleasant to think that we have—in this way or that, for better or for worse—reached out and touched one another. That, in the end, is what chemistry is all about, isn’t it?”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“if ever I were given the opportunity to compose my own epitaph, I would have engraved upon my tombstone: Here lies Flavia de Luce—A Good Samaritan So to Speak, followed by the dates of my birth and death.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“How can I help?” I asked, as Anglicans have been taught to do—and in spite of the fact that our family have been Roman Catholics since St. Peter was a sailor.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Saving a life is not servile, no matter how it looks.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Even the most foul of us likes to believe we have a saving grace.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“O, how I wish I could have conducted a chemical analysis on the look Inspector Hewitt gave me! It was composed of equal parts skepticism, outrage, acceptance, gratitude, relief, and surrender. I had never seen anything quite like it.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“I almost clasped my hands together. This amazing man was so noble he might have been born in armor and on horseback, ready-equipped with shield and lance.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“I'm sorry I said it twice," Undine said. "I sometimes suffer from an excess of zeal.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Life was dear, in every sense of the word. You just needed to remember it in the dark.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“the glorious words of the 1599 Geneva Bible: Love suffereth long: it is bountiful: love envieth not: love doth not boast itself: it is not puffed up: It doth no uncomely thing: it seeketh not her own thing: it is not provoked to anger: it thinketh no evil: It rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth: It suffereth all things: it believeth all things: it hopeth all things: it endureth all things. Love doth never fall away, though that prophesyings be abolished, or the tongues cease, or knowledge vanish away.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Call the police! “I’ll do it,” I said. “I know Inspector Hewitt’s number off by heart.” “Very good,” Dogger said. “But before you do, let’s have a quick dekko at the place. This lady isn’t going anywhere.” It was a moment right out of Philip Odell, the famous wireless detective, and I’m afraid I clasped my hands together under my chin. Such moments of bliss were few in my life and I needed to savor them the moment they occurred.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Change is unwelcome in prisons and hospitals. It is only their sameness which makes them tolerable to those kept captive within their walls.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Being stumped often offers a whole new beginning. It sometimes generates just enough anger to solve the case.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead

“Let’s go have a look at those first edition Pickwick Papers I promised to show you. You’ll find Dickens’s signature especially suggestive. It’s in green ink on the title page of each number.” “Nineteen signatures of the divine Dickens,” Helmut marveled. “Remarkable. Lead on, dear Daphne.”
― Alan Bradley, The Golden Tresses of the Dead