Hither, Page Quotes

“If the old lady who’s been giving me tea and biscuits for twenty-five years is a trained assassin, I suppose I might like assassins after all. I might have very positive and warm associations with assassins.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“He smelled of carbolic soap and tea, which Leo thought was the most honest thing in the world for a man to smell like, and he was never going to have tea or wash his hands without thinking of this man.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Cora, you’re going to give the poor man a fit,” Edith remonstrated. “He’s gone as white as a sheet. I’m too old to dig graves in the frozen ground.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“It looks like a gingerbread house assembled by a thoroughly mad child,” Page said. He took a puff from his cigarette and stepped a few paces to the side as if to survey the house from a different angle. “I love it.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“There had been a time when he thought of himself as an arm of justice, but now he knew he was more like a cat bringing home a mouse to leave on his owner’s pillow.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Leo knew that unpicking secrets meant unraveling a length of fabric or cutting out the secret entirely, creating a tear, a rift, a wound. That gaping absence was the cost of a secret.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“It was his professional opinion that all you had to do was scratch a snoop and find a blackmailer, and blackmail complicated matters dreadfully.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“He kept regular hours, avoided any human interaction more complicated than afternoon tea, and read for exactly thirty minutes before bed.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“No, I assure you that I’m farther gone than most. And I wasn’t even a soldier. All I did was, as you said, stitch people up. What right do I have to—” “No.” Page laid a hand on his shoulder. “What you’re not going to do is talk about shell shock or combat fatigue or brain fuckery as if it’s a special treat that you haven’t earned.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“This village,” James announced, “has too many damned secrets.” And with that, he stepped out into the snow.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Nobody ever thinks I’m up to no good. I let them think whatever they want and they fill in the gaps themselves.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“No.” Page laid a hand on his shoulder. “What you’re not going to do is talk about shell shock or combat fatigue or brain fuckery as if it’s a special treat that you haven’t earned.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“My head is a mess.” Page stepped closer. “That’s all of us, mate.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“She pulled a wad of knitting out of her work basket and began stitching as if the wool had done her a gross injustice and being made up into a muffler was a proper revenge”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“James was quite confident that nobody had ever enjoyed a conversation with Colonel Armstrong as much as Leo Page was pretending to.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“It’s only a matter of time before she stands for parliament or becomes a criminal mastermind, so you ought to give her some honest work to keep her busy.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“But finding out the truth wasn’t the goal—the truth was just another weapon, a knife to put in the right person’s hand, a grenade waiting to explode.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Leo was a weapon, and he didn’t care for the idea of being aimed by a stranger.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“He took Page’s face in between his still-cold hands and stroked his thumbs over the man’s cheekbones. Too tenderly for a man this dangerous, too slow for people with no future.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“IT WAS ADORABLE THAT Sommers thought he was involved with anything as straightforward as Special Branch.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Because there have been two deaths, and that means I’ve missed an evil element right on my doorstep. Either my powers of observation are lamentably poor, or this evil element is so ingrained into the fabric of our lives here that it’s become invisible to me. And, James, I don’t know which is worse.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“He had come to England as a child and had never really thought of himself as a Catholic, but it still struck him as vaguely debased that the churches here tended not to use incense.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Nobody dies in Austen,” Page said, as if that were reason enough to read and enjoy something. “Nobody who appears on page, that is. She keeps all her tragedy off page,” he said approvingly. “On page, it’s all very much like this,” he said, gesturing out the window once again at the rolling hills of the Cotswolds.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“Edith Pickering had the sort of austere features and fine bones that changed little with age.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“A stone in the prettiest, best-kept garden hid things one was better off not knowing—best for everyone not to lift that stone at all.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“That had made him very cross indeed, because all James wanted to do was keep his head down and avert his eyes from any unpleasantness, and here she was practically forcing him into action.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“By the next station, Leo was left with a lapful of shiny foil paper, gimcrack toys, and zero intact crackers. He had unraveled his mystery and was left with nothing but trash.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“There were going to be mince pies and mulled wine; he was going to have to be jolly, heaven help him.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“And with two elderly ladies, the secrets couldn’t be so bad.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page

“By patching people up, I played my role in letting the war go on. I’m complicit.”
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page