Ghost Wall Quotes

“I shivered. Of course, that was the whole point of the re-enactment, that we ourselves became the ghosts, learning to walk the land as they walked it two thousand years ago, to tend our fire as they tended theirs and hope that some of their thoughts, their way of understanding the world, would follow the dance of muscle and bone. To do it properly, I thought, we would almost have to absent ourselves from ourselves, leaving our actions, our re-enactions, to those no longer there. Who are the ghosts again, us or our dead? Maybe they imagined us first, maybe we were conjured out of the deep past by other minds.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“I didn't then like the thought of my own bones, waiting inside me for their own eventual exposure.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Actually, said Molly, it’s no harder for girls to pee than boys, the problem isn’t biology, it’s men’s fear of women’s bodies. If we were allowed to pull our knickers down and squat by a wall the way you’re allowed to get your dick out and piss up the wall there wouldn’t be a problem, it’s just the way you all act as if a vagina will come and eat you if it’s out without a muzzle.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“The plant began to topple and I found myself feeling guiltier about killing it than I had about gutting the rabbits. The whole of life, I thought, is doing harm, we live by killing, as if there were any being of which that is not the case.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Lights blind you; there's a lot you miss by gathering at the fireside.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Who are the ghosts again, us or our dead? Maybe they imagined us first, maybe we were conjured out of the deep past by other minds.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“It was bright again, as if England had forgotten how to rain”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Dad and the Prof were talking about fighting, the way men do when they're really fighting about talking.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“I'm always trying to do what dead people tell me. And specially when I'm making a replica, spending days looking at and feeling and listening to some prehistoric object, I'm kind of trying to think their thoughts too. I mean, it would make sense, wouldn't it, that when I really concentrate on the spaces between decorative dots or the exact tension of a twist, my mind's doing what their minds did while my hands do what their hands did.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Haven't you been listening, people don't bother to hurt what they don't love. To sacrifice it.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“I knew better than to challenge him; even the word 'Negro' was already some concession to my ideas because he preferred to use a more offensive term and wait, chin raised, for a reaction.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“you know the sun is in the south-east and you are on the east coast and that means as long as the sun is in both your eyes but bothering the right one more you will soon come to the water. You’re so good at this stuff, Silvie, said Molly, I suppose your dad taught you. No, I thought, I just know the approximate shape of this island and that the sun rises in the east and I didn’t need to be taught either of those things,”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Now if we go along this track we’ll come to the road and then it’s all of ten minutes to the shop, only we’ll look right prats if anyone sees us. We look right prats whether anyone sees us or not, I said, and they’ve probably heard all about it by now anyway, round here.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“… although I found I could see well enough until I came within sight of the fire. Light blinds you; there’s a lot you miss by gathering at the fireside.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“Dad and I find ash, I said, up on the moor tops at home, people say they want to be scattered there as if scattering is making something go away entirely and then we sit down with our sandwiches and realise we're in the middle of someone's granny, of course they always choose the places you'd stop for lunch, somewhere on the top of a ridge with a nice view.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

“The whole of life, I thought, is doing harm, we live by killing, as of there were any being of which that is not the case.”
― Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall