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Louis de Bernières Books

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Red Dog

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The Book of Job

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“Sergeant Pietro Oliva was a good Catholic. He liked to go into a church and cross himself, genuflect to the alter, and then settle down to a little prayer and contemplation, savouring the coolness, the heavy odours, the darkness, and the sensation of being soaked in the atmosphere of centuries’ worth of devotion that hung in the tenebrous and golden air of churches.”

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Book:Birds Without Wings
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“Psipsina emerged from inside the tunic, and jumped up on the table in order to curl up inside the cap, which had been her favourite resting place ever since she discovered the joys of contortionism; she filled it and overflowed from it in such a tangle and jumble of whiskers, ears, tail and paws that it was impossible to tell which part of her was which, and she slept in it because it reminded her of gifts of salami and chicken skins.”

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“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and, when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

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“It is said that in those days one could hear seventy languages in the streets of Istanbul. The vast Ottoman Empire, shrunken and weakened though it now was, had made it normal and natural for Greeks to inhabit Egypt, Persians to settle in Arabia and Albanians to live with Slavs. Christians and Muslims of all sects, Alevis, Zoroastrians, Jews, worshippers of the Peacock Angel, subsisted side by side in the most improbable places and combinations. There were Muslim Greeks, Catholic Armenians, Arab Christians and Serbian Jews. Istanbul was the hub of this broken-felloed wheel, and there could be found epitomised the fantastical bedlam and babel, which although no one realised it at the time, was destined to be the model and precursor of all the world's great metropoles a hundred years hence, by which time Istanbul itself would, paradoxically, have lost its cosmopolitan brilliance entirely. It would be destined, perhaps, one day to find it again, if only the devilish false idols of nationalism, that specious patriotism of the morally stunted, might finally be toppled in the century to come.”

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“So wrongdoing must be understood by standing it against righteousness" explained Abdel Hamid, holding out his hands "like right against left". He turned one hand over and then the other. He paused to take note of whether Rustam Bey was still with him. "Righteousness is good morality but it is also that about which the soul feels tranquil and the heart feels tranquil. This is what the Prophet said to Wabisah bin Ma'bad. As for wrongdoing Nawas bin Sam'an said he heard the Prophet saying that wrongdoing is that which wavers in the soul and which you dislike people finding out about, and Wabisah bin Ma'bad said that he heard the Prophet saying that wrongdoing is that which wavers in the soul and moves to and fro in the breast even though people again and again have given you their legal opinion in its favour. Both of these traditions came from imams with a good chain of authorities, one from Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and the other from Imam Al-Darimi, may God be pleased with them both. So no doubt that these things were said by the Prophet, peace be upon him.”

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Book:Birds Without Wings
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