Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont Quotes

It was hard work being old. It was like being a baby, in reverse. Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned; every day for the old means some little thing lost. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred. Both infancy and age are tiring times.

She was a tall woman with big bones and a noble face, dark eyebrows and a neatly folded jowl. She would have made a distinguished-looking man and, sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked like some famous general in drag.

The disaster of being old was in not feeling safe to venture anywhere, of seeing freedom put out of reach.

People are sorry for brides who lose their husbands early, from some accident, or war. And they should be sorry, Mrs Palfrey thought. But the other thing is worse.

...pensaba en el amor y en sus espantosas desigualdades. Siempre hay alguien que ofrece la mejilla y otro que la besa.

None wished to appear greedy, or obsessed by food; but food made the breaks in the day, and menus offered a little choosing, and satisfactions and disappointments, as once life had.

From somewhere–most certainly not from his mother–he had inherited a feeling that Sunday was a day of rest, and so he fretted through it, and always came to the end of it with a sense of wide ennui and wasted time.

Abrió el libro, pero ninguna página parecía ser lo bastante potente para borrar la soledad que sentía.

–Sé que nunca me harías esperar, a menos que tuvieras una buena razón para hacerlo. Te esperaría pacientemente, para que pudiéramos disfrutar el resto de la velada. –No, la pregunta no se refiere solo a mí –dijo él–. Puede ser cualquier otra persona. –No hay otra persona –dijo ella–. No se me ocurre nadie más.

A medida que envejecían, las mujeres parecían volverse cada vez más masculinas, mientas que el señor Osmond, en cambio, se parecía cada día más a una vieja

La catastrofe de la vejez residía en no atreverse a ir a cualquier parte, en resignarse a perder la libertad

¿Sabes?, si no alientas de entrada a las personas, aunque sea de vez en cuando, se mueren de tristeza o se transforman en Hitler

Un niño pequeño aprende algo nuevo cada día; un anciona olvida algo cada día. Los nombres desaparecen, las fechas ya no significan nada, las secuencias se tornan confusas y las caras borrosas. La primera infancia y la vejez son épocas agotadoras

Well, here’s a gallimaufry!’ said Mr Osmond to Antonio, who spooned blanquette de veau on to his plate. He liked the word, and used it for any sort of stew, sometimes ordered stew especially because he felt like saying it.

You talk a very strange language, Mimsie.’ ‘Do I, darling? Then let’s talk about you instead. How is your novel coming along?’ ‘They don’t do that. They have to be pushed a bit.

They were getting wet and Desmond did not like it. Mrs Palfrey thought that she had been through so much in the last three-quarters of an hour that rain, even on her navy crêpe, did not matter. She enjoyed his discomfort, so much more than she could deplore her own.

If you don't praise people just sometimes a little early on they die of despair, or turn into Hitlers, you know?

Mrs. Post had lain quietly down and switched off the bedside lamp. Her head was like a magic lantern into which slides were thrust noisily, one after the other.