80 Quotes by Tom Rachman

People, it turns out, aren’t a product of their own time. They’re a product of the time before theirs.

During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk – they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print.

This is good for my ego after, like, two years of seeing Italian guys in pink sweaters and orange pants and, like, pulling it off. You know what I’m saying?

Art doesn’t spring from the muses alone, but from hard work.

What’s there to say about making paintings?” He looks hard at his son. “My real life, it’s when I’m working. It’s entirely there. The rest – everything – is flimflam. And that’s tragedy. Because what am I really doing? Wiping colors across fabric? Tricking people into feeling something’s there, when it’s nothing? When I’m doing the work, I almost think it adds up. Then they drag me to some farce like tonight, and I’m reminded what my job really is: goddamn decoration.

When, she wonders, do people have time to contemplate anything? But she has no time to answer that.

Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can’t fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.

He glances at the sorry trio of copy editors before him: Dave Belling, a simpleton far too cheerful to compose a decent headline; Ed Rance, who wears a white ponytail – what more need one say?; and Ruby Zaga, who is sure that the entire staff is plotting against her, and is correct. What is the value in remonstrating with such a feckless triumvirate?

You have to understand, Annika, that I have pretty much resigned myself to spinsterhood since, I don’t know, since approximately my entire life. But just because I act chirpy about it doesn’t mean that I’m chirpy about it. You have Menzies. Me? I dread weekends. How depressing is that? I wish I didn’t have vacation time-I have no idea what to do with it. I don’t have anyone to go anywhere with. Look at me-I’m practically forty and I still resemble Pippi Longstocking.