The Lake Of Dead Languages Quotes
"Better a short life full of glory than a long inglorious one."
"A sign that we're always here for each other."
"The ordinary rules of the world don’t apply to us."
"She was a little smarter and much more beautiful than any of them. And now they would make her pay for that."
"Which of us can say what the gods hold wicked?"
"The lake is seventy-two feet deep here and I can feel the cold of that depth pulling at my feet."
"The Pill had become available, but no one had heard of AIDS yet."
"Latin is an economical language, especially when it comes to destruction."
"The ordinary rules of the world just don’t apply."
"You’re a smart girl; you shouldn’t let these unfortunate events interfere with your future plans."
"Not me, I thought, I’m never coming back here."
"The thought jars something in my memory—a flash of white on the Point just before I saw Olivia stranded on the rock."
"I commit the unpardonable sin of dining alone."
"I haven’t had a chance to change," she says, no doubt seeing the horror on my face.
"After our conversation about Miss Craven I thought you might be able to help me explain this to her aunt."
"It’s just that I think of the girls by the Latin names they take."
"I thought you’d probably be at the hospital with her since she was your student."
"You ought to be more careful about who sees it."
"I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray."
"She’s been wanting to talk to you all day. You’re the only one I can tell."
"I didn’t do it," she says. "I didn’t try to kill myself. Someone tried to kill me."
"French and Spanish are common. You'll meet more interesting children in Latin."
"I often felt like a piece in a game that she was moving around on a board."
"The truth was not that signing up for Latin was about boosting SAT scores, but about meeting expectations."
"I hadn’t understood half of what she’d said—I had never heard of Ovid or Catullus—but it was a little like listening to opera."
"I didn’t always understand the story, but I liked how listening to it made me feel."
"The lumber trucks went past my house, rattling the windowpanes."
"My mother waged an everlasting war against the sawdust."
"This is the last place on earth I thought I’d end up."
"The Iris Scholarship—something that would indeed be something."
"In the early seventies, the Corinth Public School Board threatened to cancel the Latin program."
"Helen Chambers was neither young nor middle-aged."
"After two weeks I had memorized the first declension, but I hadn’t the slightest idea of what a declension was."
"The effort to write made my whole arm ache and I wondered if Lucy realized it would be so hard for me to use it."
"Teachers college is OK, but what I’d really like is to go someplace like Vassar."
"Lucy’s the princess and I’m the little serving girl she lets clean up after her."
"I wouldn’t have to pass the mill with its sickening smell of fresh-cut lumber."
"The icy trickle of fear was a constant companion, even when stepping into seemingly innocent situations."
"I felt like something was crawling up my legs."
"The fire Deirdre’s tea had lit in my blood had turned into an icy trickle."
"The groans and wails the lake made could have been the sound of a legion of mothers grieving for a legion of daughters."
"It's the superstition that causes the problem."
"Don’t be too hard on yourself. The thing to do now is put the past behind you."
"I’ve made what amends I could and now I’m going to put the whole thing behind me."
"Believing this house is unlucky is like believing in the three sisters legend."
"I may have been responsible for Lucy learning who her mother was, but you must have let on to Matt about the baby, didn’t you?"
"I didn’t tell him the baby was Lucy’s and his. I didn’t know that."
"To obey a god—or in this case, a goddess—is freedom." - Seneca
"It’s the founder’s birthday, or close to it."
"I won’t let anyone stand in my way. Not even Lucy."
"You promised to save her and you left her on the ice to die."
"Even when we come down to drinks on the terrace there’s always a moment, when it seems the silence will never be broken."
"The silence stretches into the still, warm afternoon until it melts into the darkest part of the garden."
"The whole hill is a fountain. One might even say the entire estate."
"I suppose it’s the Blackwell scandal you’re interested in. That’s all anyone ever cares about."
"She’s been defined by that one malicious act against her instead of by all the positive good she did."
"I’m beginning to suspect they don’t hear the kind of voices I do."
"The last thing I need is to add visions to my voices."
"I pull the covers over my head, but I can still hear the wind as it sweeps down the hill."