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The Chinese Lesson
A. M. Homes
‘I am thinking about Susan, about what it means to be married to someone I know nothing about.’
Our Lives are Only Lent to Us
Penelope Fitzgerald
‘The two cultures are complementary but in the way that death is to life.’
Overreachers
Richard Ford
‘Madeleine Granville was standing at the hotel window of the Queen Elizabeth II, trying to decide which tiny car far below on Mansfield Street was her yellow Saab’.
The Hotel Capital
Olga Tokarczuk
‘At the same time I take off my exotic language, my strange name, my sense of humour, my face lines, my taste for food not appreciated here, my memory of small events—and I stand naked in this pink and white uniform as if emerging from the sea mist.’
Pronek in History
Aleksandar Hemon
‘This happened on a night train to Linz: swarthy-faced robbers startle Adolf and strip his felt jacket halfway down his arms so he cannot move them (their long nails scratching him just above his elbow)’.
But Richard Widmark
Nik Cohn
‘I ask my wife what she means by kidnap exactly, but she says never mind’.
Whale
Panos Karnezis
‘Whale arrived at work a little after seven with black circles round his eyes’.
The Trout Opera
Matt Condon
‘On the veranda of the Buckley's Crossing Hotel, reclining in dimpled leather armchairs, Judges Carrington and Thorpe observed in silence the giant trout shuffling across the bridge’
The Emotions are not Skilled Workers
Elliot Perlman
‘He is wrong, though. You didn’t read poetry at all. He had wanted you to read poetry but you didn’t.’
The Red Coral Bracelet
Judith Hermann
‘My first and only visit to a therapist cost me my red coral bracelet and my lover.’
Real Time
Amit Chaudhuri
‘He sighed; his wife never satisfied him when he needed her most; and quite probably it was the same story the other way round.’
