The Bone People Quotes
"Maybe there is the dance, as she says. Creation and change, destruction and change."
"Together, all together, they are the instruments of change."
"After the storm-night, they talked about the tide-washed child."
"It gnaws at him: the last words she gave him as they wheeled her under the flaring lights."
"She had debated, in the frivolity of the beginning, whether to build a hole or a tower."
"I am encompassed by a wall, high and hard and stone, with only my brainy nails to tear it down."
"The world is never what it seems and the sun is dying..."
"Another day, herr Gott, and I am tired, tired."
"In the window, standing stiff and straight like some weird saint in a stained gold window, is a child."
"For who knows when you may need the help of a fellow human?"
"She stands, and grimaces, and spits. The spittle lies on the sand a moment, a part of her a moment ago."
"It is happening again, and like the time before, there is nothing he can do to stop it."
"I have taken to wandering a lot, gyrovague, te kaihau."
"Who else do I know who listens to the silence of God on lonely beaches?"
"The more self-sufficient you are the better."
"Knowledge that I'm a changeable sort of person."
"I don't want to go out. I don't feel like it at all."
"Jesus oath, says Simon to his heart, what was that?"
"One drunken kid, lying hunched and untidy all over the floor."
"It would be kind to let him sleep it off. I'm not kind."
"He screamed, my God could he scream. He's a fluent screamer."
"Sorry about that, Haimona. I sure as hell didn't mean to frighten you."
"From the nape of his neck to his thighs, and all over the calves of his legs, he is cut and wealed."
"The childhood years are the best years of your life-- Whoever coined that was an unmitigated fuckwit."
"A generation. They were the only people who knew me, knew anything of me, and they kept on loving me until I broke it."
"They fitted where they touched, and that was hardly anywhere."
"E, they'll think you're some kind of leftover mini-hippy."
"A family can be the bane of one's existence."
"At least they used to check first whether the dinner still had a use for the heart or not."
"He'll tell you," he says, and lifts his child onto a bar stool.
"A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence."
"Look at my veins. Gnarled and thick like I'm already an old man. Jesus, I'm cold."
"You couldn't shift anything more, or the whole lot would topple, visually."
"Take a good look at it, Sim. Aside from the seasnake, this is New Zealand's sole poisoner."
"I am a waste, a wilderness of alien gorse and stone."
"The best part of me was lost then. What remains is a deep ulcer that will not heal, a waste."
"The roots of the tree are long and descend into darkness."
"Ah, the habit of frugality is hard to lose," he said softly.
"This is food, a piece of bread. Open your mouth and chew it."
"My home is an hour's walk from here," he says carefully, "I can help you if you need the help to walk."
"Everything changes, even that which supposes itself to be unalterable."
"The interesting thing," says the kaumatua, "is that she has now become a moth."
"You slept well, but now you are afraid to return to sleep. It is better that we talk."
"I am nearly dead," It was said matter-of-factly.
"Still, it is nothing to be ashamed of, this being careful of what one has."
"But you are still calling to her. I have been listening to your dream."
"When the dead are dead, you cannot bring them back. Not by memory, or desire, or love."
"It must seem very strange to you, a young man from the world outside, that someone has been waiting for you from before the time when you were born."
"Now about moths," says the old man briskly. "When one dies, one must journey."
"It is nearly dawn. I have some things to tell you, but you must be strong when you hear them."
"The night gives up its hold reluctantly, but slowly, very slowly, the world comes back."
"He was still after that, for over a week. Lying in the dark, lying without moving, listening helplessly to the voices."
"Instead of the shifting shattered brightness, he begins to see outlines. The light is shot through with forms."
"They crack and vanish and unexpectedly reappear; they splinter like a broken mirror when he blinks."
"He watches, his hope never quite dead, for them to enter."
"In time, says his heart. Wait, says his heart. They'll come, says his heart."
"He weeps in the dead silence and he can't hear himself cry."
"The hated voice grows weaker, cannot sing as freely."
"You could expose me to hell, you could give all my secrets away... but you've been my last resort, a soul-hold beyond even the bottle."
"So I exist, a husk that wishes decay into sweet earth. Writing nonsense in a journal no-one ever sees."
"It's been a rare year, o paper soul, not least because this is the third time I've talked to you."
"I'm working hard, I'm painting easily, fluently, profoundly. I smile often. I have direction in my life again."
"History, acts, practicalities: I started rebuilding the Maori hall because it seemed, in my spiral fashion, the straight-forward thing to do."
"It is a very young cat, not much more than a kitten indeed... It has no eyes."
"I named it. One must name cats, people, whoever whatever comes close."
"We have not just a hall, but a marae again. The fire's been relit."
"Direction one, is recovery; two, a renewed talent; three, rebuilding; and four, tying up loose ends, making the net whole."
"I have faced Death. I have been caught in the wild weed tangles of Her hair, in the gleam of her jade eyes. I will go when it is time -- no choice! -- but now I want life."