‘The words ‘big family’ have the same ring for me as 'savage tribe', and I now know that every big family is savage in its own way.’
The words ‘big family’ have the same ring for me as ‘savage tribe’, and I now know that every big family is savage in its own way.
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‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
‘Playing a role gave him latitude and allowed him to overcome his reticence.’
‘Three figures came single file over a wooded hill of the Fells carrying their rifles one-handed and keeping their heads low. They were duckwalking, hunched like Indian trackers, with the same stealth in their footfall, toeing the mushy earth of early spring. I was one of them, the last, being careful, watching for the stranger, his black hat, his blue Studebaker. Walter Herkis and Chicky DePalma were the others. When we got to the clearing where the light slanted through the bare trees and into our squinting faces you could see we were twelve years old.’
‘He was such a darter he seldom stayed still long enough for anyone to sum him up.’
‘England does not have a climate; it has weather, seldom dramatic.’
Americans, speaking of foreign lands, often say, 'It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.'
‘I read somewhere that you can get used to anything, and habit is the strongest force in our lives.’
Fiction by Marlen Haushofer, translated by Shaun Whiteside.
