12 Quotes by Jean-Luke Swanepoel

Artistic license was what she had heard it called, but in her eyes it was nothing more than artistic laziness.

He had a tongue like a razor, let us start with that. Now when you take that, and add to it eyes like a hawk, and ears like a bat, you’ve got yourself a second-to-none biographer. But add to all of that an imagination—trouble is what you’ve got then.

It’s art. None of those Greek women have arms.

Listen, you mustn’t go painting my picture too well either. Not every wrinkle needs to be seen.

Out of the four graves that Alice visited, one had a headstone—the other three would need time to settle—and it was there that she allowed herself to rest. When she grew weary of talking, she began to hum, and it wasn’t long before the tune carried her thoughts into the trees, shaking loose a handful of leaves.

Alice suddenly found herself examining the birdbath as if it was a tide pool along the shore whose depths held countless creatures instead of just algae and bird droppings. Admiring the sunset instead might have been a wiser decision, as then she could at least attempt to blink away the tears forming in her eyes.

She liked it best when it was raining, and she sometimes imagined that in one of the many tall buildings there was another Gerty mopping the floor and looking back at her, a Gerty who had witnessed and learned from the many mistakes this Gerty had made. A Gerty who would do things right.

Just wait until you get to be my age. If there’s a hair that isn’t gray, it’s an achievement. Getting old means getting ugly.

At the table next to them sat an old woman and a young man, and across from these two another man, slightly older, apparently an American. The old woman and the young man, her grandson, spoke to each other in one language, and to the American in another. The placing of their lunch order was a strange mixture of languages and accents, the young man ordering for the old woman, following her lament on the size of the portions.