Offshore Penelope Fitzgerald Quotes

Duty is what no-one else will do at the moment.

There isn’t one kind of happiness, there’s all kinds. Decision is torment for anyone with imagination. When you decide, you multiply the things you might have done and now never can.

Tilda cared nothing for the future, and had, as a result, a great capacity for happiness.

All distances are the same to those who don't meet.

If there's even one person who might be hurt by a decision, you should never make it.

Richard was the kind of man who has two clean handkerchiefs on him at half past three in the morning.

I’m afraid I’m not accustomed to the poor light, Mrs James.’ ‘Look at the sky, father. Keep your eyes on the lightest part of the sky and they’ll adapt little by little.

Let’s say that matters hadn’t gone quite right with you, I mean personal matters, would you be able to find words to say exactly what was wrong?’ ‘I’m afraid so, yes, I would.’ ‘That might be useful, of course.’ ‘Like manufacturers’ instructions. In case of failure, try words.

The barge anchors were unrecognisable as such, more like crustaceans, specimens of some giant type long since discarded by Nature, but still clinging to their old habitat, sunk in the deep pits they had made in the foreshore. But under the ground they were half rusted away. Dreadnought's anchor had come up easily enough when the salvage tug came to dispose of her. The mud which held so tenaciously could also give way in a moment, if conditions altered.

It was like one of those terrible sights of the racecourse or the battle field where wallowing living beings persevere dumbly in their duty although mutilated beyond repair.

All Fitzgerald’s books are the product of maturity, reflection, the quickly touched depth of accumulated knowledge and long experience. Their creation reflects the new sense of opportunity that may come with the bereavements and displacements of later life.

the first street on the way up from the boats, was, as has been said, considered a rough place – a row of decrepit two-up, two-down brick houses, the refuge of crippled and deformed humanity. Whether they were poor because they were lame, or lame because they were poor, was perhaps a matter for sociologists, and a few years later, when their dwellings were swept away and replaced by council flats with rents much higher than they could afford, it must be assumed that they disappeared from the face of the earth.

I’m afraid I’m not accustomed to the poor light, Mrs James.’ ‘Look at the sky, father. Keep your eyes on the lightest part of the sky and they’ll adapt little by little.

Nenna might have added to her list of things that men do better than women their ability to do nothing at all in an unhurried manner.