Robert turned to the man standing beside him. “Oliver,” he said, “how did you ever come to the conclusion that I was a worthwhile human being?” Oliver took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “What makes you think I did?
Decide if you want to change the world, or let the world change you.
I like all your worst qualities.
He was her brother by history. By love. By choice.
I’ll luck you anytime you wish.
I walked this path,” she said. “But you told me it was here.
Sometimes she was absentminded. Sometimes it was far better to be absent from reality than present for its harshest truths.
Family isn’t a matter of history. Or biology,” he said softly. “It’s a matter of choice. And don’t look so grim. You know what I meant. Just because I refuse to let that man be my father doesn’t mean you can’t be my brother.
It took some real inattention to detail, reality, and history to call either the Chinese or the varied nations that made up what Britain called India uncivilized, but then English propriety was that rare combination of inattention to everything that mattered coupled with a minute fascination with everything that didn’t.
She will have to want to do it, want it enough that she won’t quit midway. She’ll have to want it enough that she’ll work through all the frustration so she can persevere to the end. When you need someone to have a will of her own, you can’t just bend her to yours.
It had felt to her like a horrible breach of manners to show up in someone else’s country and to tell them they were doing everything wrong, and as a consequence, God intended for them all to go to hell.
Did you know, when you left that room, you took all the light with you?
You must know – I may not be serious about anything, but about you? I am.
There’s nothing terrible about being loved,” she told him. “People liked you. That’s all that happened. You are allowed to have that.
The idea came from here. It was made here. If tea is British, this sauce is British. If this sauce is British, I am British, and my wife is British, and my children will be British. I need not change myself to belong. I already belong; it is the rest of England that is out of step.
The truth is,” he told her, “I’m not like you. I don’t make lists. I don’t have rational explanations for everything. If you asked me why I wanted you, I wouldn’t be able to give a carefully thought-out account. I could only say that you make me feel like the home I want to live in.
An enormous smile spread across Andrew’s face – so large and so accepting that Jeremy could not help but smile alongside him. Dear God. Why would he want rent on a minor property when he could have companionship instead? “Ah, Posh Jim.” Andrew bumped his shoulder. “You’re a traitor to your own class. I like that in a wealthy man.
I want my wife to intimidate me. I want to know that her enemies will all fall before her. That’s the kind of woman I want by my side. She had better be intimidating.
This wasn’t the way he was supposed to fall in love. He was supposed to meet someone, to discover that her wants and wishes coincided with his, that their dreams overlapped. He didn’t want to meet a woman, to discover that the breath he drew seemed to come from her lungs, and then to realize that they couldn’t both breathe at the same time.
No,” said Mr. Fong. “You will also eat. You are rich, which means you are weak. You do not have the necessary fortitude to go without meals.” “I – that’s – ” Jeremy bit his lip. “Really unfair. I’ve skipped meals before, and it only killed me twice.
Was there anything in life more pleasurable than the sensation of striking a dark line through an item on one’s list with a pencil? Yes. There was the visceral sensation of taking out one’s pencil and striking a dark line through the last item on one’s daily list. Finishing a list had an almost talismanic quality, as if the act of turning intentions into words, then words into deeds, carried a subtle magic.