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Passing On

Book by Penelope Lively · 14 quotes · Life, Aging, Change

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Passing On Quotes

“Sandra stood by, quietly amused: she wore a sugar pink track suit with matching plastic hairslides in the shape of elephants. Edward could see quite clearly behind her shoulder, like the aura visible to spiritualists, the woman she would be in thirty years time. There is probably nothing to be done about people, he thought, nothing at all, nor ever has been: processed, from the cradle to the grave. Most neither know nor care, which makes it worse.”

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“He did not want to be young again -- that time had had particular and transcendent horrors -- but the thought of being any older filled him with panic. He could not imagine finding tranquility of soul in old age; if he could only be allowed to mark time for a while all might yet be well, one might suddenly achieve equilibrium, certainty, serenity. There would still be possibilities. Hopes.”

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“It was not so much that he had anything against people in general, more that he saw no purpose in deliberately setting up occasions on which you stood around trying to think of something to say. Moreover, the whole process was self-perpetuating; the guest became the host in an act of social revenge and thus it was on for ever. The only sensible course was never to start it in the first place.”

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