Antarctica Claire Keegan Quotes

I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores.

That's the way it is in our house, everybody knowing things but pretending they don't.

She watched the clock on the bedside table, the red numbers changing. The cat was watching her, his eyes dark as apple seeds. She thought of Antarctica, the snow and ice and the bodies of dead explorers. Then she thought of hell, and then eternity.

I run the house now. The last man who said I was old enough got scalded. My mother always said there was nothing as bad as a burn. And she was right. It's turning out that I'm taking no nonsense from anybody.

They rummage through my things, trying to find out who I am.

The house was hers, but a clause in her father's will gave Louisa right of residence for the duration of her life. Her father had always favored Louisa. She had given him admiration, whereas Betty only fed and clothed and cared for him.

Seamus gets a dartboard for Christmas. He hangs it on the back door, and himself and Da throw darts and chalk up scores while Mammy and me put on our anoraks and feed the pigs and cattle and sheep and let the hens out.      "How come they do nothing?" I ask. I am reaching into warm straw, feeling for eggs. The hens lay less in winter.      "They're men," she says, as if this explains everything.

there,

Whatever you say, I'll manage. I will live out of a water barrel and check the skies. I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores. Make nettle soup and dandelion bread, ask for nothing.