Quotes by Helen Humphreys

“People are just concerned about how this will affect (them).”

“If you live near a crematorium, you should not see any smoke emissions. If you see any emissions, you should call the Department of Environmental Protection.”

“A memorandum of understanding is currently being developed between DEP and federal land managers that will be relevant to the points in this agreement.”

“The department has spent more than $300,000 since 2004 maintaining the site and treating the discharge.”

“Instead of letting the hose run when you wash your car, fill a bucket. Dont squirt down your sidewalk, sweep it. When youre brushing your teeth, turn off the water. These are all easy things everybody can do to help.”

“Our concern is that this is spring, and typically ground water and streams are recharged during the spring. Moreover, not only is precipitation down, but vegetation, which is coming out of its dormant state, will be drawing on the ground water.”

“We need a slow, soaking rain or a series of slow, soaking rains.”

“Any time residents in an area have questions about an issue, were happy to meet with them.”

There are many different stories to tell. Its never the same. Every day weather blows in and out, alters the surface. Sometimes it is stripped down to a single essential truth, the thing that is always believed, no matter what. The seeds from which the garden has grown.

Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.

Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.

Who? Mr. Dalton has his hand firmly on Graces elbow, as though she cant manoeuvre herself through the blockade of tables and chairs.She could fly right through you, thinks Jack.

Memory is a barricade against forgetting; light is a bulwark against darkness; life is a flex against the stillness of the grave. Maybe thats what Im trying to do here, clear a space in all the debris, through all the anxieties and worries, where I can just exist, easily and simply, entire, for as long as I have left.

Dark is just light turned inside out, thinks Maddy. Why be afraid of that?

In the end, I will have to make a choice about how to tell my story....There has to be a moment of going forward, when all the possibilities are left behind.

Im beginning to feel as though everything has happened before, that our story has already been told. Just as we were powerless to stop the fox stealing the chicken, so there seems to be an inevitability to all that takes place at Mosel. This is a ghost story. And we have somehow become the ghosts of these young men who worked this estate before the Great War. The living are the dead.

With her right index finger she slowly spells words on Graces skin.Dont let me go crazy.The moon is pale and vast. The stars so sharp they almost hurt.

The moons a crazy sweetheart.

“Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.”

“Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.”