The Hireling
L.P. Hartley
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Shut the windows, draw the curtains, keep the rumour out!”
“When one has made up one's mind that things are going well, and that one has helped to make them go well, it takes some time to realize that in fact the opposite is true, and that things are not going well.”
“Their conversations usually followed the same pattern: beginning with Lady Franklin and her obsession, they ended with Leadbitter and his fictitious home-life. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies; but Lady Franklin asked a great many questions and Leadbitter told her a great many lies.”
“The civilian world was a dull place, a tired three-piece orchestra, waiting for the word 'fun'.”
“She shook her head impatiently; the idea of being in competition with other unhappy people was distasteful to her. It was an argument that her friends sometimes used, very delicately of course—that other people had more reason for grief than she had. As if grief could be measured by its causes, and not by the victim's capacity for suffering!”
“Recognition of his own value, by himself and others, was of paramount importance to the car-hire driver.”
“Nature meant his face to be expressive but he did not; for an expression is a give-away and he did not want to give anything away.”
“How is it, she asked herself, that every experience I have now turns to happiness — even this unhopeful one of trying to make Leadbitter enjoy the transepts? Am I entitled to it? Would Philip mind, that I can think of him and not grieve for him? Have I become heartless? Am I wicked? Is this euphoria as groundless as my depression was? — more groundless, since I then had something to feel depressed about and I have nothing, really, to feel happy about? Is it the conviction of well-being that sometimes goes before an illness?”
“He seldom spoke his thoughts and still more rarely, and then only in anger, did he speak his feelings, because to expose them made him feel naked, and worse than naked—flayed.”
“Apart from work, he didn't need an outside stimulus, except that curious one of picking a quarrel. It was in hostility that his being fulfilled itself. As a soldier should be, he was sudden and fierce in quarrel.”
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Book Keywords:
facial-expressions, obsession, feelings, going-well, fun, happiness, self-belief, windows, leadbitter, soldier, quarrel, thoughts, lies, suffering, dull, fighting, curtains, depression, grief, values, rumour
