The Librarian
by Salley Vickers
(Penguin, 2018)
Librarians are not alone in having favourites among their clientele but a shared love of reading is an especially powerful bond.
Page 5.
“A job with a proper future,” her mother said approvingly when her daughter revealed her career plan.
Page 6.
Chess players, however pacific in other areas of their lives, are ruthless when it comes to chess.
Page 7.
The last thing she wanted was for reading to be perceived as the means to passing dull exams.
Page 53.
History was much more convincing somehow when there was love involved.
Page 67.
He was too polite to express obvious pride but it is almost impossible, Sylvia thought, for people to conceal their feelings about their children.
Page 73.
Thought is real.
Page 98.
Sylvia felt something happening to her bones.
Page 98.
A shyness fell suddenly and wrapped them around in its shady nets.
Page 99.
It was as if … Hugh Bell had sent her a coded message through the ether.
Page 105.
Children’s authors can write about magic, other worlds, and be taken seriously.
Page 123.
“Books have to be a fit, That one isn’t right for you.”
Page 124.
Unlike parents, unmarried young women are allowed favourites.
Page 128.
The mere sound of her Christian name from his lips made her want to bend double.
Page 137.
It was as if she already had a blueprint of him inscribed in her soul, merely awaiting realisation in the flesh.
Page 161.
“Lovely people should have lovely things.”
Page 181.
The Crimean War was not the most reassuring parallel for a love affair.
Page 182.
Sylvia remembered how she had yearned for any sign of her mother’s pleasure in her presence, saving up to buy her little gifts, helping with the household chores in order to win her approval. And now it had come too late.
Page 183.
Only sadists enjoy the sight of the proud being set down.
Page 187.
The demon that compels us to voice the names of those we are smitten with made her add, “Like Marigold’s father.”
Page 198.
The things we most look forward to often turn out to be disappointing, just as the things we dread are usually, in practice, less awful than we suppose.
Page 204.
He had called her “my darling,” which was enough for her to want to fall in with any plan.
Page 206.
“It’s right to be loyal.”
Page 214.
“It’s the girl leading him on. Girls do that.”
Page 217.
Next to adulation, notoriety must surely be what a writer most craves.
Page 238.
“Only fools disregard children’s literature. Clarity of vision is shed with childhood but one can sometimes recover a glimpse of it in the best children’s literature.”
Page 251.
“The trouble is, few adults retain a true recollection of their childhood.”
Page 252.
Sometimes exhaustion of the kind that follows a serious illness has the effect of demolishing inhibition.
Page 254.
“You don’t ‘get over’ things,” Ned said. “You get used to them.”
Page 255.
When did rationality have anything to do with the human need to blame?
Page 257.
“It’s sex,” Gwen said. “People get into a flap about sex.”
Page 258.
“If a woman can’t keep hold of her husband then there’s something wrong with her.”
Page 262.
The truth, she was beginning to see, was no proof against evil.
Page 263.
Comfort me with apples, comfort me with mistletoes, for I am sick of love.
Page 266.
When one is young it’s easy to be pure, pure in spirit, I mean, undivided, whole, wholesome.
Page 276.
There’s no requirement in the marriage ceremony for one to be understood.
Page 277.
“Nothing wrong with incest, provided you keep it out of the family. According to Freud, all love is transference.
Page 283.
Ideologues are impervious to reason.
Page 286.
“When someone makes a stand there’s nothing to be done except wait for them to get tired and climb down.”
Page 286.
“He is a moral man, not that morality is always the best guide for human conduct.”
Page 288.
“It’s seeing the books that makes them wat to read.”
Page 293.
“I have always preferred,” her hostess said, “to live in houses that run counter to that which first meets the eye.”
Page 297.
“People are not consistent. That is a modern delusion. No one in the ancient world made such an absurd assumption. The Persians debated all important mattes twice: once drunk and once sober.”
Page 300.
“It is a mark of superior wisdom to be able to sustain contrary views.”
Page 300.
“You are old enough to be aware that most dislike is envy - you have attracted envy.”
Page 313.
“It’s human beings who put right human error. Or don’t, more often, I’m sorry to say.”
Page 314.
“It’s worth remembering that not everything that happens is about oneself. It seems so when you’re young but most of what seems to be aimed at us is really to do with other people and their own inadequacies.”
Page 314.
“Why does everything come too bloody late?”
Page 323.
“There’s always something to be found out.”
Page 344.
Time and its local inhabitants stand still in memory.
Page 360.
What happened back then, in the past, changes all the time
Page 365.
“Everything makes you feel guilty when you’re a child, whether it’s your fault or not.”
Page 373.
It is truly a task for the angels to surrender a grudge long held.
Page 375.