The paradox of the English country house is that its state of permanent decline, the fact that its heyday is always behind it, is part of the seduction, just as it is part of the seduction of books in general.
He wasn’t surprised. He was used to this anticlimactic feeling, where by the time you’ve done all the work to get something you don’t even want it anymore.
His crush went from exciting to depressing, as if he’d gone from the first blush of infatuation to the terminal nostalgia of a former lover without even the temporary relief of an actual relationship in between.
I loved fantasy, but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better – as in the Chronicles Of Narnia, The Wizard Of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.
By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn’t doing it.
A big silvery janitor. Penny, this can’t be how the universe works.” “In the Order we call it ‘inverse profundity.’ We’ve observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the cosmic mysteries, the less interesting everything gets.
Supposedly I’ve got traces of an English accent, though I can’t hear it. I must have inherited it from my mother, who’s English, and then I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I live with an Australian.
