The Household Stacey Halls Quotes

Ain't it funny what shame does. They'd sooner see me sent round the world than have me home.

I’ve been thinking about everything that led me here, because Mr Dickens wants to know. But a fall is swift, sudden, when really it isn’t like that at all. They imagine it to be a seduction or a moment of weakness, as if we carry this precious thing in a little box on our person. But it isn’t a single thing, a single moment. It’s more like a series of little deaths. Don’t you think?

The city is cruel but not heartless; it always offers a step to sit on, a secret corner to tuck oneself inside. There are thousands of people working thousands of jobs, fine parks and wide streets in which rich and poor may walk side by side. In London, a cat may look on a king.

Sounds like thieving to me. We're put in prison for taking things that ain't ours. But the Queen's men or whoever are allowed to just sail up to places and say they're theirs, and it ain't a crime? Seems more of a crime to swipe a country than a stocking, to me.

But then, nothing lasts forever, other than death.

If London has a colour, she thinks, it is brown. Paris is pale grey.

It’s awful quiet here, ain’t it? All I can hear is my thoughts.

But this sight is like a balm to her soul. She is moved by it, and knows now that witnessing love can be as nourishing as experiencing it herself.

Home is only a memory. And she is grateful for it, because to have had it and lost it is better than never having it at all.