But what about school?’ said Bruno, interrupting her, a thing he knew he was not supposed to do but which he felt he would be forgiven for on this occasion. ‘And what about Karl and Daniel and Martin? How will they know where I am when we want to do things together?
I need to get back to the office. Those windows won’t stare out themselves all afternoon.
Every man is afraid of women as far as I can see.
Most men are not as smart as women and yet they continue to hold all the power. They fear a change of the world order.
He wore the headdress of a Red Indian and was making the sounds to match, a terrible howling that would have given a deaf man a headache.
But they’d never once invited any of the striped pyjama people to dinner.
Aus-Wisch?”, fragte Bruno, “Was ist ein Aus-Wisch?
My mother was Eveline Hartford,” said Maude, as if this would mean something to one or the other of us. “So as you know, she simply adored chairs.
But here’s what you have to remember: There are no homosexuals in Ireland. You might have got it into your head that you are one but you’re just wrong, it’s as simple as that. You’re wrong.
I felt that this must be what it would be like to be married to someone, a constant back and forth of bickering, watching out for any stray comment in a conversation that might be corrected, anything to keep gaining the upper hand, the advantage, bringing one closer to taking the game, the set and the whole blasted match without ever ceding a point.
We even shared a young man from time to time. Oh don’t look so shocked, Cyril. It was the 1930s, people were a lot more evolved then than they are today.
One day he was perfectly content, playing at home, having three best friends for life, sliding down banisters, trying to stand on his tiptoes to see right across Berlin, and now he was stuck here in this cold, nasty house with three whispering maids and a waiter who was both unhappy and angry, where no one looked as if they could ever be cheerful again.
He’d always been a handsome man, of course, and his good looks had stayed with him into old age, as they so often do with undeserving men.
I’ve always felt that the Catholic Church has the same relationship to God as a fish has to a bicycle.
In school, the other girls formed alliances which always excluded me. They called me names; I will not repeat them here. They made fun of my unshapely body, my pale skin, my untamed hair. I do not know why I was born this way.
The only thing I’d tell Maude, if she was here, is that she runs the risk of sounding a little anti-man at times, don’t you agree? All the husbands in her novels are stupid, insensitive, faithless individuals with murky pasts, empty heads, micro-penises and questionable morals. But I suppose she had a good imagination, as all writers must, and she was simply making things up.
The same thing that’s happened.
After all, the clamour of the crowded public house is infinitely more welcoming than the stillness of the empty home.
But this was Dublin, the nation’s capital. The place of my birth and a city I loved at the heart of a country I loathed. A town filled with good-hearted innocents, miserable bigots, adulterous husbands, conniving churchmen, paupers who received no help from the State, and millionaires who sucked the lifeblood from it.
The truth is that I can’t remember a moment when I didn’t want to be a writer. From childhood, I loved books, I loved stories and I loved writing my own.