“Each memory was brought to life before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense.”
“The American Dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily.”
“You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.”
“Later Achilles would play the lyre, as Chiron and I listened. My mother’s lyre. He had brought it with him.
‘I wish I had known,’ I said, the first day when he showed it to me.
At home, Gemma has to deal with her sister Debbie’s engagement, the soon-to-be in-law family, the war-obsessed Websters and all the other insanities an upcoming wedding brings with it.
“When the children have been good,
That is, be it understood,
Good at meal-times, good at play,
Good all night and good all day, -
They shall have the pretty things
Merry Christmas always brings.”