121 Quotes by Anne Michaels

Truth grows gradually in us, like a musician who plays a piece again and again until suddenly he hears it for the first time.

When you are alone – at sea, in the polar dark – an absence can keep you alive.

If the truth is not in the face, then where is it? In the hands! In the hands.

Somewhere a man answers courage with courage.

History is the gradual instant.

Destruction doesn’t create a vacuum, it simply transforms presence into absence.

Trees for example, carry the memory of rainfal. In their rings we read ancient weather – storms, sunlight and temperatures, the growing seasons of centuries. A forest shares a history which each tree remembers even after it has been felled.

There was currant toast squishy with butter, caramel-marshmallow squares, strawberry boats oozing custard, chocolate exclairs that exploded with cream when the cats bit into them with their little white teeth and – a special treat for Pleasant – a pie made from thick slices of Bramley apple, with just the right amount of tangy in the tangy-sweet.

No one is born just once. If you’re lucky, you’ll emerge again in someone’s arms; or unlucky, wake when the long tail of terror brushes the inside of your skull.