Peter Carey

As for her maternal passions, these were not conventionally expressed, although I relished those occasions, by no means infrequent, when she feared that I would die. It is recorded that, in the year of 1809, she called the doctor on fifty-three occasions. Twenty years later she would still be taking the most outlandish steps to save my life.

my body being always too thin-walled a container for the passions coursing through its veins

Now on these endless stairs I feel the slow drag of my breath like a rat-tail file inside my throat.