But I envy the Commander’s Wife her knitting. It’s good to have small goals that can be easily attained.
I hunger to commit the act of touch.
That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first in your head, and then you make it real.
What was the rationale for all this pillaging? Souvenirs. These people needed something to remember themselves by. An odd thing, souvenir-hunting: now becomes then even while it is still now. You don’t really believe you’re there, and so you nick the proof, or something you mistake for it.
His time, what a bankrupt idea, as if he’s been given a box of time belonging to him alone, stuffed to the brim with hours and minutes that he can spend like money. Trouble is, the box has holes in it and the time is running out, no matter what he does with it.
What was about this that made us feel we deserved it?
I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed.
I intend to get out of here. It can’t last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn’t last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.
Live in the present, make the most of it, it’s all you’ve got.
Modesty is invisibility, said Aunt Lydia. Never forget it. To be seen-to be seen-is to be-her voice trembled-penetrated. What you must be, girls, is impenetrable.
Now that she’s the carrier of life, she is closer to death, and needs special security.
She who weeps when the sun’s in sky, Will never pile the platter high.
I almost gasp: he’s said a forbidden word. Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law.
Murderess, murderess, he whispers to himself. It has an allure, a scent almost. Hothouse gardenias. Lurid, but also furtive. He imagines himself breathing it as he draws Grace towards him, pressing his mouth against her. Murderess. He applies it to her throat like a brand.
Now I wanted to be acknowledged, but I feared it.
She was an infallible prophetess, and these powers came from her ability to look into the patterns of the universe.
Within each of these categories, the principle was the same: rarity and beauty increased value.
I will bend, I will touch the ground, or as close to it as I can get without rupture. I will lay a wreath of invisible money on her grave.
A Sister, dipped in blood.
Roz added sheep to Heaven. They would be outside the window, naturally.