Best 11 quotes of Sinclair Ross on MyQuotes

For his presumption, his misunderstanding of what had been only a momentary weakness, instead of angering quickened her, roused from latency and long disuse all the instincts and resources of her femininity. She felt eager, challenged. Something was at hand that hitherto had always eluded her, even in the early days in John, something vital, beckoning, meaningful.

He had been bewildered by it once, her caring for a dull-witted fellow like him; then assured at last of her affection he had relaxed against it gratefully, unsuspecting it might ever be less constant than his own.

His eyes were narrowed as he spoke, bitten a little with perplexity at the uselessness of being right against the world.

Hypocrisy wears hard on a man who at heart isn’t that way.

I don’t know what the solution is. Surely there’s more than one way for a man like Philip to earn his living. Surely something can be done to make him realize it. Because you’re a hypocrite you lose self-respect, because you lose your self-respect you lose your initiative and self-belief – it’s the same vicious circle, every year closing in a little tighter. Already it’s making him morose and cynical – smaller than he ought to be. I can’t help wondering what he’ll be like ten years from now.

It’s an immense night out there, wheeling and windy. The lights on the street and in the houses against the black wetness, little unilluminating glints that might be painted on it. The town seems huddled together, cowering on a high tiny perch, afraid to move lest it topple into the wind.

It’s only since we’ve had Steve with us that I’ve realized how much of himself a man has to give before he’s really possessed. I used to think it was possession because we lived together as man and wife. I didn’t know how little it can amount to wanting a woman at night, putting up with her in the daytime.

Religion and art [...] are almost the same thing anyway. Just different ways of taking a man out of himself, bringing him to the emotional pitch that we can ecstasy or rapture.

Ross’s style is always beautifully matched to his material – spare, lean, honest, no gimmicks, and yet in its very simplicity setting up continuing echoes of the mind. (Margaret Laurence's Afterword)

Sorry I didn’t do better,” he said. “I’ll have to come back another year and have another lesson.” I clenched my hands and clung hard to this promise that I knew he couldn’t keep. I wanted to rebel against what was happening, against the clumsiness and crudity of life, but instead I stood quiet a moment, almost passive, then wheeled away and carried his cornet to the buggy. (Cornet at Night)

What exactly she was thinking I never knew. Perhaps of the crop and the whole day’s stoking lost. Perhaps of the stranger who had come with his cornet for a day, and then as meaninglessly gone again. For she had been listening too, and she may have understood. A harvest, however lean, is certain every year; but a cornet at night is golden only once. (Cornet at Night)