“All young people believed they were immortal, and he had personal experience of the methods they used to cull themselves - base-jumping, sky-diving, hard drugs, alcohol. Over the years he'd come to see solid sense in the ways so-called savage peoples formalised their rituals of manhood; without such regulation, young men seemed compelled to invent their own, even more lethal, rites of passage.” Young MenRites Of Passage Book:The Element -inth in Greek Source: The Element -inth in Greek
“Pericles, he reflected, was a sad case. He'd been a postman all his life, a solid, reliable worker, until one Christmas when he had stolen all the gifts he was meant to deliver: wind-chimes, scented candles, Belgian chocolates, cowbells from the Bernese Oberland. Most of the haul had been lavished on his elderly mother; the rest he had stashed in his bedroom, which the old lady, being too frail to climb the stairs, no longer cleaned.” TheftCharacter DescriptionMother SonPostal Book:The Element -inth in Greek Source: The Element -inth in Greek
“The carved images on the early Minoan sealstones are tantalising, inscrutable. The Nature Goddess is yanked from the soil like a snake or a sheaf of barley; the Mistress of the Animals suckles goats and gazelles. There are male Adorants certainly - up on tiptoe, their outstretched arms hoisted in a kind of heil, their bodies arched suggestively, pelvis forward, before the Goddess - but there are no masculine deities, not a single one in sight. No woman worth her salt, one might think, could fail to be intrigued.” ThinkingKindBodyMightAnimalFailingArmsSightMalesSoilSaltGoddessSnakesMasculineDeitiesMistressGoatsIntriguedInscrutableTiptoesBarleyGazellesWoman Worth Author:Alison Fell
“Give a bull grass, sweet water and a willing heifer and he is happy. But a man is never content. If no gadflies of worry exist he will invent them.” IfsMenGivingWaterWorryWillingSweetGrassBullsGadflies Author:Alison Fell
“New York lesson 1 - never look lost. Lesson 2 - forget hallowed silences. It's the right of all Americans to talk at the tops of their voices.” LooksLostVoiceForgetSilenceNew YorkLessons Author:Alison Fell
