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Quote by Laura Purcell

“You'll call me heartless for thinking such thoughts. Maybe I was: a cavity yawned in my ribs, where once I'd felt a heart beat back.”

Quote by Laura Purcell

Work

The Corset

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Author

Laura Purcell

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“It seems blasphemous that my mother's death even existed in the same reality as those moments that subsequently came to define my youth; taking the long way home from Nixon's Corner so I could listen to Kid A twice, or poring over the lurid covers of horror paperbacks in a newly discovered corner of Foyle Street library. How is my mother's passing even part of the same universe that gave me the simple pleasures of ice cream after swimming lessons in William Street baths, or scenting the sun cream on girls' skin as they daubed polish on their outstretched, nonchalant nails. My life wasn't over from that point on. I'd laugh and cry and scream about borrowed jumpers, school fights, bomb scares, playing Zelda, teenage bands, primary-school crushes and yet more ice cream after yet more swimming lessons. I'd just be doing it without her. To some extent, I'd be doing it without a memory of her. The most dramatic moment of my life wasn't scored by wailing sirens, weeping angels or sad little ukuleles, nimbly plucked on lonely hillsides. Mammy's death was mostly signalled by tea, sandwiches, and an odd little boy in corduroy trousers, announcing it with a smile across his face.”

“Everyone's grief is on a different timetable. You'll know when you're ready. ... I lost my grandmother when I was nine, and while it's not the same as your grief, the loss was like a piece of gum. The longer I chewed it, the less flavor it had. And then one day I swallowed it. So I'm not chewing it every day, but it's still inside me. And I heard that gum takes, like, seventy-two years to digest, so ...”

“The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed. always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.”

“He saw into me, but still smiled and felt warm without the pity or anger or desire to pull away that’s common when people find out how really busted up you are. For as much as people say they care, you really find out how much of it’s a lie when you show someone the wounds you carry. They think they understand because they were disappointed once, but I’ve learned that those who brag about charity are usually the least charitable.”