A Secret Agenda Quotes

“she realized deep in the darkest recess of her mind that a life with Jack would mean saying goodbye to herself. She wondered if it were like that for everyone who got married and had children and lived the life they were expected to live. Did they, too, lose a little bit of themselves? Over the years, did they stop recognizing who they once used to be? What was it about giving yourself to someone? She supposed it was just that, that you gave yourself and they did with you what they pleased. Which meant it was vitally important to give yourself to the right person. The person who would take you in but leave you unchanged, intact, whole – so that you didn’t look back after twenty or thirty years and wonder who you used to be.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“It’s a Bolshevik outpost now, and as such it will have an enormous security presence. That we can be sure of. The Russians are nothing if not paranoid.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“Friends were like water, you could go a little while without, but ultimately when all the short stays had danced in and out of your world, a friend gave you eternity.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“He could be businesslike and detached, she reflected, and he could be tender and engaged.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“She gazed up at the brick building’s three-storey facade. A large bell tower fronted one corner adding another, smaller floor to the building and dotting it with high, arched windows, while a miniature version of the same tower could be found at the rear of the building. Somewhere asymmetrically between the two, was an ambitious front entrance – a rather garish but commanding limestone archway that appeared as though it was about to take flight.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“There was a satisfaction in domesticity – it nurtured the soul.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“retrieved a dark head of lettuce and some golden beets from an earthenware bowl. “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?” It pleased him that she thought he would. He nodded. He’d always despised beets but he would eat anything for her.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“a dark police car sidled up to the kerb.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“Every police station he had ever been in had the same smell – old wood, floor polish, and the remnants of dinner. It was only the dinner that varied.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“You know, London. Heavy seat of bureaucracy, bastion of architecturally hideous monolithic establishments, grotesquely large boulevards leading to the very pits of boredom”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“He had polished the burled walnut panelling in cars one and two himself last week and even in the dim light the gleam pleased him, like the curve of a raven’s back before a wet dawn.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“a steady trickle of illegitimate inhabitants quietly made their way from the walls and floorboards”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“a long row of hornbeams beginning to contemplate autumn,”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda

“It was just after midnight and Oxford Station was nearly empty. A lone mouse hurried across the paving stones, stopping once to give his surroundings a cheerless glance.”
― Lisa Zumpano, A Secret Agenda