Madeleine Is Sleeping Quotes

“How terrible it is to recognize that one’s brilliance rests solely upon the small-mindedness of others.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine Is Sleeping

“She hears the word bell, or orchard, or swallow, and she experiences a strange surprise, like the feel of a coin in the soil. These words make her wistful; they overwhelm her with longing. Not for her orchard, nor the bell in her church, nor the swallows that nest in the eaves of her house. For something else altogether, something she would have forgotten completely.

She wonders: Why should these words pierce me, if they are not the remains of a currency I once knew how to spend?”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine Is Sleeping

“But illness does not always write itself upon the body, the sickness I search for is hidden deep within the brain. Sometimes it rises to the surface. Sometimes the face betrays what the body conceals. But there moments, these betrayals, last no longer than an instant. They come, they go, they pass over the patient, darkening and brightening his face like clouds gusting over a meadow. How is it possible, then, to tell what he is suffering when the visible signs of his inner disorder appear so fleetingly upon his face?”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine Is Sleeping

“Perhaps, beguiled by custom and order, one's sense of evil goes numb.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine Is Sleeping