The Good People

That night, at ten years old, she had understood, finally, why people feared the darkness. It was an open door, and you could step through it and be changed. Be touched and altered.

To be a mother is to have your heart cut out and placed in your child.

There’s no kindness in helplessness

Her heart thudded like a man buried alive.

An old broom knows the dirty corners best.

‘If there is one thing that will sink sickness deeper into the body, ’tis loneliness.

Nóra knew that death made people long to smoke and drink and eat, as though by tending to their lungs and stomachs they were assuring themselves of their own good health, of the certainty of their continued existence.