98 Quotes by Pat Barker
- Author Pat Barker
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The past is a palimpsest. Early memories are always obscured by accumulations of later knowledge.
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Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.
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Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.
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It’s the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else’s pain.
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I looked at him as he turned and walked away and I saw a man who’d learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, a coward without dignity or honour or respect.
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Achilles’ story never ends: wherever men fight and die, you’ll find Achilles.
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Rivers knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem of the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the proces of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.
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On the face of it he seemed to be congratulating himself on dealing with patients more humanely than Yealland, but then why the mood of self-accusation? In the dream he stood in Yealland’s place. The dream seemed to be saying, in dream language, don’t flatter yourself. There is no distinction.
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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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