Свет в океане

“You’re my other half of the sky” (Tom to Isabel)

“There are still more days to travel in this life. And he knows that the man who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way. Scars are just another kind of memory. Isabel is part of him, wherever she is, just like the war and the light and the ocean. Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.”

“Every end is the beginning of something else" (Tom)

“The ocean gives not the slightest hint that any time has passed, ever”

“I wanted revenge. Haven’t you got anything to say about that?’
‘I know you did, sweet. I know. But that time’s over.’
‘What, so you forgive me, just like that? Like it’s nothing?’
‘What else is there to do? You’re my wife, Isabel.’
‘You mean you’re stuck with me …’
‘I mean I promised to spend my life with you. I still want to spend my life with you. Izz, I’ve learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you’ve got to give up hope of ever changing your past"

“...no point in fighting your war over and over until you get it right” (Ralph to Tom)

“A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it.”

“...if a lighthouse looks like it’s in a different place, it’s not the lighthouse that’s moved" (Tom)

“We’re – we’re not in a perfect world. We have to live with that" (Isabel)

“But it’s not always plain sailing, even when you’ve found the right girl. You’ve got to be in it for the long haul. You never know what’s going to happen: you sign up for whatever comes along. There’s no backing out.” (Ralph to Bluey)

“The oceans never stop. They know no beginning or end. The wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island”

“AS ISABEL GOES about her day – always moving, always busy – she has a keen physical sense of where Lucy is, attached by an invisible thread of love. She is never angry – her patience with the child is infinite. When food falls to the floor, when grubby hand marks decorate the walls, they are never greeted with a cross word or a disapproving look”

“Only weeks ago she had been so full of expectation and vigour. Now the room felt like a coffin, and her life stopped at its edges.”

“There are times when the ocean is not the ocean – not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits.”

“Such a mysterious business, motherhood"

“If the war had taught her anything, it was to take nothing for granted: that it wasn’t safe to put off what mattered. Life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back”

“It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilisation"

- Трудно быть героем, болтаясь в петле. ©

Ты не поверишь, с какой лёгкостью ребёнок взламывает всю твою оборону и овладевает душой. И для тебя это полная неожиданность.