The Night Fisher Elegies Quotes

“From: REFLECTIONS - "I am nothing without my children”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“From: REFLECTIONS - "I think people have come to rely on social media as a means of avoiding real contact with one another. They stay indoors, don't pick up the phone, put off opportunities to gather together. Rather, they depend upon the cocoon of the internet — the comment or the like; They make themselves believe that this form of contact is adequate to exist. Social media reduces life to an abstraction — one that can be employed as a tool to advance an idea, or a weapon to repudiate another. Social media has a dehumanising effect. It chips away at empathy, rendering us indifferent to the potential for harm and the suffering that is inflicted. The arena becomes a battleground, a cage, an abattoir where psychological war can be waged and metaphysical murder committed with impunity”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“From: REFLECTIONS - "Utopia of any sort is impossible. Humanity is far too complex and dichotomous. The pursuit of one Utopian ideal by one group will inevitably hurt and damage another group. Human endeavour, therefore, has to be a balancing act between achieving the greatest good for the greatest number — to quote the classic Utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham — and preventing tyranny. Tyranny always rises out of utopia. Utopia is a contradiction. I think it is Dystopia”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“From: REFLECTIONS - "Moments of learning come from places and people you might least expect. The classroom can be anywhere - even the barber shop. Especially the barber shop”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“THE CORNER - "The thing about coming home is though the environment may change, the places I knew so well may have passed on, the houses may be empty, the experience of life and the precious memories are sustained within my Nana. All of those places were touched in some way by her love - be it the butcher shop or the church on the corner or the tiny cottage on North Road. Somewhere in each of them, Nana has had a hand of influence, even if it is just a small influence. I connect with here because she is here”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“FLY FISHING WITH HARRISON FORD - "Friendships can form in the most unlikely places — even in places I've never been and with people I've never met. Even in my dreams. Nourishment has an unlimited potential”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“ARNOLD WEBB - "While Arnold remained a confirmed bachelor, it was said his heart had been broken once. A woman of means and spirit who had turned his head and rendered him love struck. The grand house he had built had been for her and he'd decked it out with all the accoutrements she had asked for. He'd even positioned the master suite so that it overlooked the valley - the best view in the district. But she didn't stay. No one was quite sure why. Rumour had it that she had lost a baby. That she'd had second thoughts about country life and returned to the City. Suffice it to say, after she'd gone, Arnold closed his heart and never spoke of her again”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“THE NOOSE - "Clouds gather and blot out the sun. The gentle breeze becomes a harsh gust that carries the bonfire smoke across the ridge. The stench of tragedy and death. The full horror of what the visitor has surmised reveals itself to her”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“INFINITE - "A motel room off a highway. Rain patters the bitumen in front, the roof above. Rain drips from rusted gutters. Distant thunder rolls. Lightning - both forked and sheet - light up the sky thick with swollen clouds. The pungency of petrichor hangs in the air. Portent lingers near - malevolent”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“MAN - "The man sits on the edge of the bed. He cups his hands together and rests them in his lap. The lump on his head throbs. His neck is sore. His knee clicks each tome he moves it. He gazes through the window, through to the street light beyond. A single tear forms at the edge of his right eye, it swells in size... Then trickles down his cheek”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“SERENNA - "The scene before me resembles a vista from an E.M. Forster novel, a quintessentially English countryside. A meandering brook winds through the meadow catching glittering sunlight from above as it passes through the boughs of weeping willows. To my right, a tall oak tree stands solitary on a rise. I can see a rope swing hanging from one of its boughs”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“CLUSTER ONE - "As still as a mill pond. A surface, mirror smooth, reflecting light and darkness such that it was impossible to tell where the star field above met the horizon. It was perfection. A moment captured in repose”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies

“FEAST - He is a forgotten soul, lost in the multitude of windows of the tenement”
― Dean Mayes, The Night Fisher Elegies