The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to
say. He forget to say, with every death it ends. Or did not
think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he
worked in a graveyard.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter One, Roseanne's Testimony of Herself,
opening lines of novel, Page 3. |
Sligo made me and Sligo undid me, but then I should have given
up much sooner than I did being made or undone by human towns,
and looked to myself alone.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter One, Roseanne's Testimony of Herself,
Page 3. |
There is seldom a difficulty with religion where there is
friendship.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Two, Roseanne's Testimony of Herself,
Page 18. |
His [Dr. Grene] talk had locked me in silence, I know not
why. It was not opening, easy, happy talk like my father's,
after all. I wanted to listen to him, but I did not want to
answer now. That strange responsibility we feel towards others
when they speak, to offer them the solace of any answer. Poor
humans! And anyway he had not asked a question. He was merely
floating there in the room, insubstantial, a living man in the
midst of life, dying imperceptibly on his feet, like all of
us.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Three, Page 29. |
There is a moment in the history of every beaten child when
his mind parts with hopes of dignity – pushes off hope
like a boat without a rower and lets it go as it will on the
stream, and resigns himself to the tally stick of pain.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Nine, Roseanne's Testimony of Herself,
Page 90. |
Roseanna, you are a very lovely young girl, and as such I
am afraid, going about the town, a mournful temptation, not
only to the boys of Sligo but also, the men, and as such and
in every way conceivable, to have you married would be a boon
and a rightness very complete and attractive in its - rightness.
The Secret Scripture
Fr Gaunt explains to Roseanne, Chapter
Nine, Page 94. |
I do remember terrible dark things, and loss, and noise, but
it is like one of those terrible dark pictures that hang in
churches, God knows why, because you cannot see a thing in them.
The Secret Scripture
Roseanne to Dr Grene, Chapter Ten, Page
101. |
It seemed as he moved forward, his intention changed, humanity
cleared from his face, something private and darker than humanity,
something before we were given our troublesome souls, stirred
in his eyes.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Ten, Page 105. |
Anyway for my sanity I am writing here. I am sixty-five years
old; past the Beatles song. By some accounts this is young.
But when a man wakes on his fortieth birthday he may safely
say he has no youth ahead of him.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Eleven, Dr Grene's Commonplace
Book, Page 116. |
Too much thinking on death. Yet it is the music of our time.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Fourteen, Dr Grene's Commonplace
Book, Page 150. |
There has never been a person in an old people's home that
hasn't looked around dubiously at the other inhabitants. They
are the old ones, they are the club that no one wants to join.
But we are never old to ourselves. That is because at the close
of the day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Fifteen, Dr Grene's Commonplace
Book, Page 177. |
They say the old at least have their memories. I am no so
sure that is always a good thing. I am trying to be faithful
to what is in my head. I hope it is trying also to be faithful
to me.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Sixteen, Roseanne's Testimony of
Herself, Page 201. |
I am old enough to know that time passing is just a trick,
a convenience. Everything is always there, still unfolding,
still happening. The past, the present, and the future, in the
noggin eternally, like brushes, combs, and ribbons in a handbag.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Sixteen, Roseanne's Testimony of
Herself, Page 203. |
There is a moment to speak to a topic, just like there is
a moment for every song, no matter how rare.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Seventeen, Page 209. |
The real comfort is that history of the world contains so
much grief that my small griefs are edged out, and are only
cinders at the borders of the fire.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Seventeen, Page 215. |
I wonder why anything is.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Nineteen, Roseanne's Testimony
of Herself, Page 232. |
Morality has its own civil wars, with its own victims in their
own time and place.
The Secret Scripture
Dr Grene's observation, Chapter Twenty-One,
Page 278. |
I carefully peeled off a sprig as recommended in the books
in the chapters on propagation, and slipped it in my pocket,
feeling almost guilty, as if I were stealing something that
didn't belong to me.
The Secret Scripture
Chapter Twenty-Two, Page 300, closing lines
of novel. |
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