It was a failure of pedagogical nerve, she reminded herself, to give up on a student.

— Paul Russell

Just because you pretend the universe doesn't have teeth doesn't mean you won't get eaten in the end.

— Paul Russell

Louis thought he would be all for a back-to-the-basics drive in education: a teacher, an olive tree, a bit of midday wine (the Greeks had watered theirs down to keep their heads lucid), and, last but not least, six or seven eager and receptive youths seated at one’s feet.

— Paul Russell

Love loves anarchy. It loves to wreak havoc. It loves to dance atop the ruins.

— Paul Russell

My darlings! You can hardly expect an aged crone like me to mar such a lovely event. No, I shall remain here and knit shadows. Now go forth and shine bravely, and think of nothing but love.

— Paul Russell

Our students didn’t use to come from such damaged families,” Louis mused. “It’s true what they say. This country really is coming apart at the seams.

— Paul Russell

People always knew more than you gave them credit for. Perhaps, in the end, no one had any secrets at all.

— Paul Russell

Shirtless, they’d stretch out in the long grass and take the healing brunt of a noontime sun that gave no clue of the thunderheads it already, in secret, had begun to breed.

— Paul Russell

Soon would come the night in which there was no more work – not the work of the hands, nor the work of the mind, nor the work of the heart.

— Paul Russell

Still, for all that, her life had lacked passion. The demons had never come for her.

— Paul Russell