The Bridge Quotes
"You can't have people going off and doing things just because they want to, just because they think something up! You have to have a... a framework."
"It would appear that I deserve this exalted position because I am one of Dr Joyce's star patients."
"I have the impression that all my original questions concerning the size of the bridge, what it is bridging, what it connects, and so on, will have been handed on, rephrased, precis'd, tidied-up, glossed, paraphrased and retransmitted so often and between so many different departments and offices that by the time they come to be considered by anybody capable of- and willing to - answer them, they will be virtually meaningless."
"I can cope with my single language and with the customs and mores of the bridge (all surely the product of training at some point), but I can remember nothing of my schooling, my upbringing."
"I would quite like to punch Dr Joyce right on his grey-pink nose."
"I'd have said it was more like approximately, but never mind. Anyway, there is something beyond the bridge, something I can almost but not quite remember."
"I think both these dreams, this one and yesterday's, tell us nothing."
"The world - the bridge, anyway - may be going mad, but a man must still have his breakfast."
"I don't think luck had much to do with it. I don't think anybody knows or cares."
"Every type of strata is represented: sedimentary, meta-morphic, and both intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks."
"In the lands below, the women command, and the men remain the size of babies all their lives."
"To be a good liar you have to have a very good memory; to fool others you usually have to be cleverer than they."
"I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves."
"I think most of the patients who claim to believe they're other people are just playing a sort of game with the staff."
"Everything has to be understood; perhaps not everything can be, not like equations and formulae."
"Not everything has to be understood; perhaps not everything can be."
"No oceans, not a river, hardly a stream will dry before our eyes do, and our hearts."
"The lines between dreaming and wakefulness are blurred."
"No I don't know where I am. No I don't know who I am. Yes of course I know it's all a dream."
"A tune fit for the end of the world, the end of all life, the end of all things."
"I'm asleep now, but ... well, I'm asleep now. That's enough."
"I assume they are to prevent any more fly-pasts by the aircraft; rather an excessive reaction, I'd have thought."
"Somebody knocks at the door. With any luck, it will be a repairman."
"I struggle with the door; the handle turns but nothing happens."
"I retreat to my study before he suggests I watch some television to pass the time."
"The good doctor's signature. The bald man says, 'See, he already knows sir; it was him authorised it.'"
"Just wait until your case is reviewed; I'll make whatever recommendations I think fit."
"My priorities? Certainly it's been uncomfortable coming down in the bridge, but my inability to remember who I am is not something I can ever forget."
"I take it you are less than totally delighted with your new accommodation."
"No, I'm not certain,' she says, pulling out blankets and newspapers from the chest, 'but I'm sure I could talk him round. Don't worry."
"I suppose people get a bit eccentric and daft, stuck out here in the sticks."
"You are what has gone before, just another collection, a point on a (stretched) line, just the wave-front."
"It isn't just Edinburgh, you know, it's you as well."
"I need my own place, and I dare say I'll always be too easily led astray by a soft voice or a nice bum."
"I don't suppose if I asked you to marry me, you'd say yes, would you?"
"I think you can see Paris from almost anywhere."
"Sorry kid. It'd be you, if anybody. It just isn't me."
"You better believe it kid; I deserve the best."
"The empty train I had stowed away on moved for days over the bridge, sometimes slowing but never stopping."
"I drank water from the toilet washbasins, and day-dreamed or dreamt about food."
"The carriages were unlit at night, haunted by the flickering beams of yellow-orange light from outside."
"It grew gradually warmer with each passing day, and the sunlight outside became brighter."
"After some days, though, everything seemed to get darker again, as I lay, faint with hunger."
"Then one night I awoke, dreaming of the last meal I had had with Abberlaine Arrol."
"I felt my way to the nearest outside door, opened the window and stared out."
"The train was full of passengers; well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who looked as though they came from the bridge."
"The train moved for days through mountains, and then across a high, grass-covered plain."
"I had other dreams, besides the recurring one of the man in the severely beautiful city."
"Here is the Republic, a cold, concentric place once known, they say, as The Eye of God."
"I sweep the leaves even when there are no leaves to sweep; it is the law."
"I tell them there isn't. Some people have started to avoid me."
"The dormitory was full of dead soldiers in grey uniforms when I returned."
"The park which I was supposed to sweep was there, but covered in tents and surrounded by ruined buildings."
"The clouds were orange islands against the ink-black sky."
"I wandered for hours. Towards dawn, as I was returning to the dormitory through this unending nightmare."
"I did not think the shrivelled old could contain so many tears."
"Somehow I was not surprised when I discovered that everybody had these dreams."
"The first I saw of it was the wall; the grey sea wall skirted by low surf and topped by low towers."
"Light-sapped skies hung over the glen. He wondered what this place looked like when the palace was still a place for kings."
"By the time we were ready to play our part it was already too late; we were always too soon or too late, and the best things we've done have been for other people."
"Self-sacrifice, the woman behind the man, looking after him, putting herself second; it went against all she believed in."
"His heart beat faster; he put the can down, thinking. He didn't really know what it was he wanted to say, only that he wanted to talk to her, to hold her, to just be with her and tell her everything he felt for her."
"Aw hell; everybody does it at this time of year. Damn it, I drive better drunk than most people do sober."
"You wouldn't get away with that normally, chum. He settled back in the seat, his fingers on the small steering wheel beating in time to the music."
"He was aware of the truck in front pulling out suddenly. He looked round to see a car in front of him. It was stopped, abandoned in the nearside lane. He sucked his breath in, stamped on the brakes, tried to swerve; but it was too late."
"He thought about heading back, taking the road down to North Queensferry after all. There was a station there; he could park, take the train (in either direction) ... but he'd passed the last turn-off before the bridge."
"Nothing lasts. Maybe that's what I want to tell her. Maybe I want to say, No, of course I don't mind; you must go."
"I see the bridge. At first I am certain it is a hallucination. Then I believe it might be a mirage, something which looks like the bridge reflected in the air and - to my parched, obsessed eyes - taking on its form."
"The bridge is in ruins. The main sections are largely intact, though damaged, but the linking sections, those spans, those little bridges within bridges, they have collapsed or been destroyed."
"I recognise this. I know where I am. Everywhere is deserted. I see no skeletons but I find no survivors."
"I used the last of my strength to peel open my coat and jacket and bare my chest to the invisible, turning bolt in the sky. I lay, spreadeagled, for some time; two of the birds landed near me. I did not stir."
"I want to come back. Can I please? I want to come back. Now. Now we try. Sleep; wake. Do it now."