A Long Petal of the Sea

heroically. In his heart of hearts he was hoping they would rouse his country from its insular somnolence

it made no sense to leave behind men and women who had defended their ideals so

Her husband had worked collecting cork before
the war, and when Neruda had told him there were no cork oaks in Chile, he replied drily: well, there will be. The poet thought this was a splendid riposte, and so accepted him on board

concentration camps and my exiles. I didn’t choose any of that: it simply happened to me.”

Faced with so many disasters, happiness seemed to him obscene

He wasn’t worried about his health. He had adopted the theory that to stay healthy, the best thing was to ignore any bodily or mental alarm signals and always keep busy

Marriage suits men, although not women. When it came to marriage, though

The problem was how hard it sometimes can be to die swiftly and with dignity. It

he felt her absence as a physical pain. He didn’t want to accept being old. Advanced age is a distortion of a familiar reality, it changes the body as well as circumstances. You gradually lose control and have to depend on the kindness of others

He realized in horror that the half century they had spent together had galloped by. Where had the days and years gone