The Shilling Book

Thinking of death — strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off made me feel happier than ever.

All day I have been two people — the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in — the me in what is going to happen next.

(of Mrs. Cotton) She is just wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right looking.

Topaz tall and pale, like a slightly dead goddess.

(of Stephen’s gaze) It was more like being touched than being looked at.

But then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself.

“I’ve no use for antiquity in bathrooms.” (Mrs. Cotton)

(of Leda Fox-Cotton) She barely bothers to open her mouth — the words just slide through her teeth.

Dear me, dancing is peculiar when you really think about it. If a man held your hand and put his arm around your waist without its being dancing, it would be most important.

(Cassandra to Rose) “It’s enough just to mention things, you know. Long prayers are like nagging.”

I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.

(of Topaz) It really is agony to talk to her about books. When I was longing for a calm discussion of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she said, “Ah, it’s the overlapping dimensions that are so wonderful. I tried to paint it once, on a circular canvas” — and then she couldn’t remember who Natasha was.

… there were some reflections about life I wanted to record. (I never did record them — and have now forgotten what they were.)

(of Simon) It was the queerest feeling — changing the man I had imagined to the real man. I had made him so fascinating, and of course he isn’t really.

“I think I felt a beard kept me in touch with literature.” (Simon)

I am an honest liar when I take my time.

“Original? Rose?” (Cassandra)

Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes.

Oh, it is amicable being with someone who knows the poems you know!

“Did anything as beautiful as this ever happen before?” (Simon)

American men are used to being just friends with girls.

Oh, I long to blurt out the news in my first paragraph — but I won’t! This is a chance to teach myself the art of suspense.

When things mean a great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn’t safe.

I don’t believe that church prayers are particularly efficacious, but one can’t waste all that kneeling on hard hassocks.

Miss Marcy isn’t the woman of the world Topaz and I are.

I ought to have recorded that second visit to Scoatney immediately after it happened, but describing May Day had rather exhausted my lust for writing.

He told me lots of interesting things about life in America — they do seem to have a good time there, especially the girls.

Americans are wonderfully adaptable — Neil and Simon helped with the washing-up. (They call it “doing the dishes.”)