Passing On
Penelope Lively
Top 10 Best Quotes
“People are always meaning well,' said Edward. 'That's often the trouble.”
“There's this piece of contemporary mythology that the forties are the best time of your life. A load of cock, so far as I'm concerned.”
“Sandra stood by, quietly amused: she wore a sugar pink track suit with matching plastic hairslides in the shape of elephants. Edward could see quite clearly behind her shoulder, like the aura visible to spiritualists, the woman she would be in thirty years time. There is probably nothing to be done about people, he thought, nothing at all, nor ever has been: processed, from the cradle to the grave. Most neither know nor care, which makes it worse.”
“Don't you ever realise," said Helen, "that the way we live is unlike the way other people live?" "On the whole I should have thought that was cause for satisfaction.”
“Anyone would think we were some kind of free education service,' grumbled Joyce, having disposed of the child and returned to her central eyrie. 'That's just what we are,' said Helen. Joyce shot her a look in which surprise and indignation were nicely fused.”
“And I am forty-nine and getting old and soon it will be too late for all the things I know nothing of but which torment me in the middle of the night and here now in this place which is supposed to be a comfort and a solace. I am lonely and hungry and I have never breathed a word of this to anyone. Nobody knows or cares. I don't want anyone to know or care.”
“The problem about us,' said Helen, 'is that we've never felt the same way about money as most other people seem to.' 'I've never thought of it as a problem.”
“She patted Edward's arm. 'You'd be uncomfortable being comfortable, wouldn't you?”
“Other people's houses always intrigued her by the contrast they offered to Greystones; she would see suddenly -- with detached interest and quite without envy or criticism -- the extent to which other people's preoccupations differed from her own.”
“It was not so much that he had anything against people in general, more that he saw no purpose in deliberately setting up occasions on which you stood around trying to think of something to say. Moreover, the whole process was self-perpetuating; the guest became the host in an act of social revenge and thus it was on for ever. The only sensible course was never to start it in the first place.”
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Book Keywords:
change, meaning-well, socializing, destiny, time, nature-vs-nurture, choices, middle-age, decorating, aging, money, eccentrics, problems, material-goods, loneliness, learning, things, unhappiness, good-intentions, eccentricity, people, personality, desires, contrasts, discomfort, hosting, growing-up, life, intentions, eccentricities, gatherings, best-time-of-your-life, houses, teaching, living, parties, forties, social-life, interests, education, librarians, possessions, small-talk, libraries, service, wants, comfort, habit
