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The Night of the Railwaymen’s Ball

Ivan Klíma

‘The season of ballroom dancing was upon us and crime was on the increase. I have little interest in ballroom dancing – I don't dance.’

The Adjuster

Tracy Kidder

’On the day my career at Fireplace Mutual began, six of us recruits filed into the smoke-filled office of the Supervisor of Adjusters, Mr Kreisky.’

Night Prayer

Louise Erdrich

‘It was hot and windy in the garden of Our Lady of the Wheat, but inside the convent it was worse.’

Bears in Mourning

Adam Mars-Jones

‘When I think about it, it was terrible the way we behaved when Victor died. We behaved as if we were ashamed of him, or angry.’

Ramadan

Mona Simpson

‘He took my left hand and banded a cleft rose petal over my third finger. I knew before looking in the book. ‘Marrying,’ he said. He’s so young, I was thinking.’

Craigavon Bridge

Seamus Deane

‘If we destroy it in another, we destroy it in ourselves.’

The Law of White Spaces

Giorgio Pressburger

‘It was beginning to seem as if his brother’s fate depended on him, on his ability, or lack of it, to learn the prayer for the dead.’

The New World Order

Harold Pinter

‘He has little idea of what we’re about to do to his wife.’

Proofs

George Steiner

‘Now the burn seemed to smart behind his eyes.’

Time’s Arrow (Part Three): The Conclusion

Martin Amis

‘Your shoulder blades still jolted to the artillery of the Russians as they scurried eastward.’

Sitting on Top of the World

T. Coraghessan Boyle

‘It was like floating untethered, drifting with the clouds, like being cupped in the hands of God.’

Plastic

Graham Swift

‘Sorting out the world! He should have sorted out himself and his own jeopardized household.’

In Summer Camps

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘The sky burned white to blond to powder to an almighty blue; the sun fell unobstructed.’

Some are Born to Sweet Delight

Nadine Gordimer

‘She stopped where she was; sourness was in her mouth and nose, oozing towards the foreign stranger, she mustn’t go a step nearer.’