I read The Shadow of the Wind recently, and really enjoyed it. At times it almost veered into ‘holiday reading’ tweeness, but it was saved by some close observation and the author’s fresh turn of phrase.
Anyway, I found myself noting passages I liked, and here are some of them*:
“One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn’t have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.”
“I realised how easily you can lose all animosity towards someone you’ve deemed your enemy as soon as that person stops behaving as such.”
There was a beautiful pun where characters were discussing the Catholic Church and the mysterious Fermin said, “let’s not mention the missal industry”.
And finally, “a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discuss otherwise.”
* Of course, one person’s interesting snippet is another person’s trite crap.