The Dictionary of Lost Words

Favorite quotes:
“I often wondered what kind of slip I would be written on if I was a word. Something too long, certainly. Probably the wrong colour. A scrap of paper that didn't quite fit. I worried that perhaps I would never find my place in the pigeon-holes at all”. P. 123

“I had to think. ‘It's about seeing something before it's fully formed. Watching it evolve. I imagine sitting here on opening night and appreciating every scene all the more because I understand what has led to it. Bill laughed. ‘What's so funny?' ‘Nothing. It's just that you don't speak often, but when you do it's perfect” p. 149

“Maybe it's about time I became “more worldly”, as you put it. Things are changing. Women don't have to live lives determined by others. They have choices, and I choose not to live the rest of my days doing as I'm told and worrying about what people will think. That's no life at all” p. 169

“He'd given me something I'd wanted since the first time he took my hand. It wasn't love; nothing like it. It was knowledge. Bill took words I'd written on slips and turned them into places on my body. He introduced me to sensations that no fine sentence could come close to defining. Near its end, I'd heard the pleasure of it exhaled on my breath, felt my back arch and my neck stretch to expose its pulse. It was a surrender, but not to him. Like an alchemist, Bill had turned Mabel's vulgarities and Tilda's practicalities into something beautiful. I was grateful, but I was not in love.” p. 175

‘Fear hates the ordinary, she said. ‘When yer feared, you need to think ordinary thoughts, do ordinary things. You ‘ear me? The fear'll back off, for a time at least” p. 185

“There was none. There are none. There never would be a word to mach Her” p. 210

“There was the fainest smell of coal smoke and the sounds of birds calling their own to roost, their songs as clear and distinct as church bells. My face was wet with loss and love and regret. And woven through it all there was a thread of shameful relief” p. 226

“He came round to my side of the table and sat beside me. “Love, Easy. A good family is one where there is love” p. 234

“(...) You can't change what is. - “do you really believe that, Lizzie?” She looked at me, wary of the question. “Surely things could change if enough people wanted them to” I continued”. p. 246

“It struck me that we are never fully at ease when we are aware of another's gaze. Perhaps we are never ourselves. In the desire to please or impress, to persuade or dominate, our movements become conscious, our features set”. p. 317

“If war could change the nature of men, it would surely change the nature of worlds, I thought. But so much of the English language had already been set in type and printed. We were nearing the end” p. 342