Finger of an Angel Quotes

“Its half a dozen legs, divided into segments – either four or five, it was difficult to count them - had an elegance of movement that Lily found enthralling. As though choreographed to a beat mimicking the thumping in her breast, the precise spasmodic jerks of their several bends made her think of Madonna dancing to Vogue. They had the faultless coordination of intertwining cutlery in the hands of a hungry magician – or of the Queen eating dinner alone. This rush of ridiculous analogies caused Lily to laugh with delight, loudly, now without the slightest fear that the fly might be disturbed, because this fly was unlike other flies, and Lily knew that it would know not to feel under threat.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, Finger of an Angel

“Before her she could see only colour, now not just a marvellous painting but a previously unimaginable phantasmagoria. She had never felt this liquid intensity before, not even in her most extreme contortions during naked yoga.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, Finger of an Angel

“Bella had been formed out of the rib of Lily’s guilt to be its opposite, and to counter more sinister voices whose clamour would have driven Lily to an asylum. Instead, with Bella’s help, she had taken control of her madness. Imagining a Bella who in every way was better than her, by aspiring to her kindness Lily became able to be kinder to herself, and slowly relearn how to live. Sharing Bella’s yearning for knowledge and a deeper understanding of the world, she had never lost sight of the stars.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, Finger of an Angel

“It was perhaps even more of a remarkable phenomenon for being so inconspicuous, so entirely understated. Nothing else had moved backwards, only time. There had been no Charlie Chaplin moments. No pile of broken dishes had reassembled themselves in a stack. No steps had been retraced, no events had repeated themselves, and no stretch of road had been the same. The sun had stayed still or had swung back and forth, and time had travelled backwards as though in a capsule apart from the rest of the world, while every earthly action it encompassed had unfolded with unstoppable forward momentum.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, Finger of an Angel

“As she watched the creature slowly raise its head, its antlers like luminous branches of mythical trees, Lily felt the awe of being in the presence of something irrefutably divine. Eyes that radiated kindness surveyed her, and with the slightest sideways jerk of its crown, the sacred deer invited her closer.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, Finger of an Angel

“As though the fuzz of reminiscence had spilled into the landscape, her entire field of vision became a shifting overlap of colourful brushstrokes, even more unclear and undefined than her thoughts.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, Finger of an Angel