BURIAL RITES – Hannah Kent

P 84 Agnes

God has had His chance to free me, and for reasons known to Him alone, He has pinned me to ill fortune, and although I have struggled, I am run through and through with disaster; I am knifed to the hilt with fate.

A LOVE LETTER FROM A STRAY MOON - Jay Griffiths

P 6-7

I recovered from polio, and I grew fierce, boxing, playing football and swimming, and I remember those days of skates, bicycles and boats as if it was a girl’s boyhood, those days when I was sleek and disobedient as an otter, tempestuously playful and reveling in it. I was sent to catechism class with my sister and we escaped and went to an orchard to eat quinces. I will never forget how sweet was the fruit of our disobedience in that orchard.

A JOKE FROM MY CHARISMATIC ACCOUNTANT – (Old but Gold!)

On realizing both our paternal ancestry’s go back to Tipperary, Ireland, Jim tells me there are only four words a traveler in Ireland need use – preferably together but they can be broken up into pairs

WHALE                                OIL                                       BEEF                                    HOOKED

(I think it could be at least a chapter heading for a book I am writing that has links to Ireland)

The sublime in a time of COVID

Tim Winton – The Shepherd’s Hut

Page 233 – From Fintan, the old timer

‘I suspect God is what you do, not what or who you believe in…

… when you do right, Jaxie, when you make good – well, then you are an instrument of God. Then you are joined to the divine, to the life force, to life itself…

Think of it this way – when somebody does me a kindness, it enlarges me, adds to my life, you see? And not only mine – it adds to all life. Which is why I wanted to thank you. For coming here’.

Mario Vargas Lhosa – The Feast of the Goat

Page 277 – The Generalissimo speaking to the ‘puppet president’

‘You, President Balaguer, have the good fortune to be concerned only with the best part of politics’, he said icily. ‘Laws, reforms, diplomatic negotiations, social transformations. That’s what you’ve done for 31 years. You have been involved in the pleasant, enjoyable acts of governing. I envy you! I would like to have been only a stateman, a reformer. But governing has a dirty side, and without it what you do would be impossible. What about order? Stability? Security? I’ve tried to keep you away from unpleasant things. But don’t tell me you don’t know how peace is achieved. With how much sacrifice and how much blood. Be grateful that I’ve allowed you to see the other side and devote yourself to the good, while I, Abbes, Lieutenant Pena Rivera, and others kept the country in order so you could write your poems and your speeches. I’m sure with your acute intelligence, you understand me perfectly.’

A mural on a wall in Barcelona, August 2019 – The caption beside it read:

‘The sound of a kiss is not as loud as that of a cannon but its echo lasts a great deal longer’

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside a dog it’s too dark to read’

-          Groucho Marx