Summerwater Quotes

“getting married is like voting in that whatever you choose the outcome will be at best mildly unsatisfactory four years down the line.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater

“And the waves, of course, have almost gone here in the shelter of the island and the peninsula where even today there are cars glinting wet through the trees, people desperate enough to walk in the rain or some of them just seem to drive to the end of the road and park and sit there, newspapers and tea from a flask and it makes him itch everywhere at once just thinking of it, people sitting in parked cars, the windows steaming up, waiting for minutes to pass, for their lives to drip away.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater

“He once caught Marcus spitting over the side, and though he told him off he could see why he'd done it. There's something about fatal drops that makes you want to launch a bit of yourself, just a mouthful, over the edge.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater

“Milly likes Josh fine, it’s just that she’s hungry and it’s pretty cold when they’re not under the duvet and she’d kill for a cup of tea.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater

“She’s learnt the creaks of this floor now, makes a long stride over the worn patch. Steve’ll whinge if she wakes him, try to get her to have sex instead of running, easy enough to fend him off but then she’s started the day, started the ticking clock of what she ought to be doing, wife and mother, on holiday, cleaning and breakfast and fun for the kids, making memories and making sure to photograph them in case they turn out not to be memorable after all.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater

“If she’d had the confidence then, if she’d known how to apply for a passport and buy a ticket and board a plane when she was young enough to walk away.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater

“The sound waves pulse, like the rings around a thrown stone, spreading out across the rainy night. Music crosses raindrops. The air full of noises riddled with movement. Soundwaves travel through the cabin's open door, and through the gaps in the windows over the waterlogged earth, into all the ears in the woodland. The fox cubs feel it through the earth of their den. The bats in their rafters. In a nest of bracken up on the hillside, a doe pricks her ears towards a running beat too heavy for wolves. The anthill pulses. Damp trees absorb the higher frequencies, swallow the energy into the wetness and wood flesh, so it is the bass that penetrates your head and drums on the drums inside.”
― Sarah Moss, Summerwater