98 Quotes by Pat Barker


  • Author Pat Barker
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    But it's not very likely, is it, that any movement towards greater tolerance would persist in wartime? After all, in war, you've got this enormous emphasis on love between men - comradeship - and everybody approves. But at the same time there's always this little niggle of anxiety. Is it right kind of love? Well, one of the ways you make sure it's the right kind is to make it crystal clear what the penalties for the other kind are.

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  • Author Pat Barker
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    Elinor retreated to the terrace where the night air on her skin felt like a hot bath. She was hurt, it had been such an onslaught. All the things she'd achieved in the past four years, the independent life she'd built for herself, seemed to count for nothing here. The only thing that mattered to her mother was finding a husband. As for painting, well, nice little hobby, very suitable, but you won't have much time for that when the children arrive.

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  • Author Pat Barker
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    Nothing happened. Well, of course nothing happened! Isn't nothing what generally happens when you pray to the gods?

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  • Author Pat Barker
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    Someone once said to me: You never mention his looks. And it's true, I don't, I find it difficult. At that time, he was probably the most beautiful man alive, as he was certainly the most violent, but that's the problem. How do you separate a tiger's beauty from its ferocity? Or a cheetah's elegance from the speed of the attack? Achilles was like that- the beauty and the terror were two sides of a single coin.

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  • Author Pat Barker
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    Half the world's work's done by hopeless neurotics.

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  • Author Pat Barker
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    we quite unselfconsciously assumed we were the measure of all things. That was how we approached them. And suddenly I saw not only that we weren't the measure of all things, but that there was no measure.

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  • Author Pat Barker
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    A woman, not a thing. Wasn't that a prize worth risking everything for, however short a time I might have to enjoy it?

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