The Wasp Factory Quotes
"Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them."
"I had hoped for Eric's face, or some further clue about what was going to happen, but I got nothing."
"The pleasure comes from the elegance of the compromise you strike between where the water wants to go and what you want to do with it."
"Women... well, women are a bit too close for comfort as far as I'm concerned."
"I've always had a rather ambivalent attitude towards something happening to my father, and it persists."
"What delight to behave really badly and still get loads of sympathy!"
"I had thought that I was the only murderer in the family, but old Eric beat me to it."
"The only bright thing about such abstinence is how good it feels to have a shower at the end of it."
"What the hell's the point of drinking if you don't get drunk?"
"My father has a theory about the link between mind and bowel being both crucial and very direct."
"I determined to keep the Polaroid with the War Bag in future; for low-risk punitive expeditions like that against the rabbits it would more than repay the extra weight."
"I killed little Esmerelda because I felt I owed it to myself and to the world in general."
"Children aren't real people, in the sense that they are not small males and females but a separate species which will (probably) grow into one or the other in due time."
"I knew that three deaths in my immediate vicinity within four years had to look suspicious."
"I was lucky, again. Nobody saw anything, and nobody could believe that I had done it."
"I was already looking forward to going out in the evening - a few drinks and a chat to Jamie, my friend, and some sweaty, ear-ringing music at the Arms."
"I wonder sometimes where my cousin ended up; at the bottom of the sea, or washed on to some craggy and deserted shore, or blown on to a high mountain face, to be eaten by gulls or eagles...."
"I would like to think that she died still being floated by the giant kite, that she went round the world and rose higher as she died of starvation and dehydration and so grew less weighty still, to become, eventually, a tiny skeleton riding the jetstreams of the planet; a sort of Flying Dutchwoman."
"Our lives are symbols; everything we do is part of a pattern."
"Every question is a start looking for an end."
"Nobody is truly a full man, and nothing can ever alter that."
"Sometimes I think maybe he's up to something, maybe he's not really crazy after all."
"Perhaps he just got fed up acting normal and decided to act crazy instead."
"My enemy is twice dead, and I still have him."
"I was still in my dressing-gown, sitting watching the television in the lounge, when the phone went."
"'To bed, to sleep; perchance to masturbate. Ah, there's the rub! Ho ho ho!'"
"Clouds were coming in off the sea, closing the sky like a door and trapping the day's heat over the island."
"In the loft it was very stuffy. I opened the skylights and stuck my head out, surveying the land."
"I completed my round of the Sacrifice Poles, then spent half an hour indulging in a bit of target practice."
"I turned on Radio Three, which was playing a Wagner opera; just the thing to put me in the mood."
"'Jesus Christ, what's that?' my father breathed, turning a shaking head towards the window."
"My father was in the kitchen, holding a pail of water and a carving-knife."
"I sat down at the head of the table, collapsing into the chair."
"I looked out at the glittering sea while Eric's head rests on my lap and I think again of that poor horse."
"I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't stay here, and I'm frightened of everywhere else."
"I looked down at Eric again, and smile, nod to myself in the breeze while the waves break."
"Poor Eric came home to see his brother, only to find he's got a sister."