“...as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy.”
Work
Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired) leads a quiet life in the village of St. Mary, England, until his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But will their relationship survive in a society that considers Ali a foreigner?
Quotes
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Helen Simonson
Canonical work source
“...as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy.”
“The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,' said the Major. 'A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.”
“...I tell myself it does not matter what one reads--favorite authors, particular themes--as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.”
“We are all small-minded people, creeping about the earth grubbing for our own advantage and making the very mistakes for which we want to humiliate our neighbors.”
“He cursed himself for having assumed the weather would be sunny. Perhaps it was the result of evolution, he thought--some adaptive gene that allowed the English to go on making blithe outdoo...”
“He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that wor...”