The Marble Collector Quotes
"Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe."
"I’m always quiet at Mass because my first memory of Mass is Ma pointing up at Jesus on the cross, blood dripping down his forehead and nails sticking out of his hands and feet, and her saying, ‘If you say one word in here, embarrass me, I’ll do that to you.’"
"I’m not sure what else to do, but I don’t want to put them away again. They look so beautiful lining my floor, like a candy army."
"I’m as useless as tits on a bull, as he tells me."
"We all have things we never want to forget. We all need a person to remember them just in case."
"I suppose it’s the way it hit the wall. The angle or something."
"The young lad watches me studying it. He’s right to be worried."
"That man was a hoarder – remember how full the skip was when we sold the apartment? He used to bring those sachets of mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise home every day from whenever he ate out."
"The kind of game we play when the family go on a long journey, not that we go anywhere much."
"Every time they get it wrong, the difference in the amount guessed and the amount held is how many times he lands a punch to their face and body."
"I try to tell him that’s enough and he fires himself at me, pulls my hair so hard on my head I think my scalp’s about to come off."
"He roughs them up a little more and one of the boys cries really loudly for help, his nose bleeding, his eye all shut up."
"I see a bully, my brother, where I once saw a hero."
"You think Ma will ever let you set foot in the house again if you do that?"
"He’s the kind of fella that teases a girl senseless if he fancies her, who treats you bad if he wants to be your friend."
"I’ve never thought of myself as better than Hamish and I spend the day puffed up with something like pride."
"I think of me sitting here today, on a quest to find Dad’s marbles, and wonder if this is lunacy after all."
"I wanted a chance for us to make it up, for him to say sorry, for him to see what a big man I was."
"When I picture Sabrina in my mind I see a screwed-up face, worried."
"I have a soft spot for her. She reminds me of Sabrina."
"Gina’s only met Angus briefly, at the wedding; he’s living in Liverpool and he can stay there."
"I could have talked to Gina about Hamish but I didn’t. I chose Da."
"We were married yesterday and we still haven’t had sex."
"I’ve waited for her for a year, I suppose I can wait for the length of a massage."
"I feel like I’m giving a part of myself to her."
"You married me yesterday but today is the first time you’ve met me. My name is Fergus Boggs, my life is marked by marbles."
"We’ve been saving for so long. I just want to get away from living with Mum, I want it to be just you and me."
"I offered my real self and I was rejected."
"Finding out about Dad seems to be much more important than finding the actual marbles."
"Hurtful things are roots, they spread, branch out, creep under the surface touching other parts of the lives of those they hurt."
"He lied because he wanted to, because he liked to, because he got some kind of buzz out of it."
"The best way to be the best you can be is to be dead."
"In the marble world I am a man of my word, a perfect rule-abiding man, but the man without the marbles? His whole life has been about cabbaging."
"It’s incredibly frustrating to forget, it must be an entirely other thing to be the forgotten."
"No more secrets. Not with Cat. This is my chance at a fresh start."
"It’s rhythmic and it’s relaxing. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say suddenly."
"‘You were always off stuffing worms up your hole.’"
"‘Sabrina could never sleep during a full moon,’ I say, and they keep a respectful silence."
"‘It can’t have been you,’ I say. ‘What were you – two? Three?’"
"‘I’m surprised he’s here at all, but appreciative.’"