Linen Quotes

“A woman calls from Seaview to say her linen closet is missing. Last September, her house had six bedrooms, two linen closets. She's sure of it. Now she's only got one. She comes to open her beach house for the summer. She drives out from the city with the kids and the nanny and the dog, and here they are with all heir luggage, and their towels are gone. Disappeared. Poof. Bermuda triangulated.”

“Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the fetid detail of the moment to spot where it is leading us. But not this time. I was experiencing one of my dad’s deafening moments. If my life could be understood as a meal of many courses (and let’s be honest, much of it actually was), then I had finished the starters and I was limbering up for the main event. So far, of course, I had made a stinking mess of it. I had spilled the wine. I had dropped my cutlery on the floor and sprayed the fine white linen with sauce. I had even spat out some of my food because I didn’t like the taste of it.“But it doesn’t matter because, look, here come the waiters. They are scraping away the debris with their little horn and steel blades, pulled with studied grace from the hidden pockets of their white aprons. They are laying new tablecloths, arranging new cutlery, placing before me great domed wine glasses, newly polished to a sparkle. There are more dishes to come, more flavors to try, and this time I will not spill or spit or drop or splash. I will not push the plate away from me, the food only half eaten. I am ready for everything they are preparing to serve me. Be in no doubt; it will all be fine.” (pp.115-6)”

“It is not linen you're wearing out But human creatures' lives.”

“After all, I was dressed in linen and so retained a certain capacity for nonchalance.”

“I believe that Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen.”

“The man now retrieved a linen cloth and stuffed it deep into Katherine’s mouth. “Death,” hewhispered to her, “should be a quiet thing.”

“He's already tan, and leaning on the rail in his yellow linen shirt, with the pure glory of Venice racing behind him, I think he looks like someone I'd like to run off with, if I already hadn't.”

“I know. I'm sorry." And the bizarre part is that I really am. I want to be good, to use the right fork and wear a pretty linen dress to breakfast. I want to be the girl in the pictures upstairs. But I can't be. That girl is dead.”

“They left their encampment with dirt-covered linen strewn about the abandoned grounds amongst clothes, shoes, children’s toys and other discarded belongings. The handcart wheels crunched over them, and the dry wheels screamed as the Willie Company started for Zion.”