The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Helen Simonson

Memories were like tomb paintings, thought the Major, the colors still vivid no matter how many layers of mud and sand time deposited. Scrape at them and they come up all red and blazing.

Her favourite summer memories were not of events themselves, of picnics, sea bathing, tennis afternoons and cricket matches, but of watching Hugh and Daniel enjoying them and locking into memory the delight in their faces and their open laughter.

england, love, memories

Despite his attempts to maintain a vigorous structure of errands, golf games, visits, and meetings, there were sometimes days like this one, filled with rain and touched with a gnawing sense of parts missing from life. When the slick mud ran in the flower beds and the clouds smothered the light, he missed his wife.

loneliness, missing-someone

My dear Mrs. Ali, I would hardly refer to you as old,” he said. “You are in what I would call the very prime flowering of mature womanhood.” It was a little grandiose but he hoped to surprise a blush. Instead she laughed out loud at him. “I have never heard anyone try to trowel such a thick layer of flattery on the wrinkles and fat deposits of advanced middle age, Major,” she said. “I am fifty-eight years old and I think I have slipped beyond flowering. I can only hope now to dry out into one of those everlasting bouquets.

Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process.

morals, regret, rules

You are a wise man, Major, and I will consider your advice with great care—and humility.” He finished his tea and rose from the table to go to his room. “But I must ask you, do you really understand what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?” “My dear boy,” said the Major. “Is there really any other kind?

humor, love, women

But it’s not enough to be in love. It’s about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it’s what work you do … Better to break both our hearts now than watch them wither away over time.

love, relationship

I miss being a student,” said Abdul Wahid. “I miss the passionate discussions with my friends, and most of all the hours among the books.

education, learning, students

Most of all I remember that what begins with drums and fife, flags and bunting, becomes too swiftly a long and grey winter of the spirit.

War does have a way of interfering with one’s most closely held desires.

…I tell myself it does not matter what one reads–favorite authors, particular themes–as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.

I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead,” she replied, an acid tone in her voice. “Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from Pakistan. In exchange, I will be given houseroom and no doubt, the honor of taking care of several small children of other family members.”The Major was silent. He was at once appalled and also reluctant to hear any more. This was why people usually talked about the weather.

aging, family, family-relationships, inevitability, pessimism, relationships, resignation