The lost art of keeping secrets

The lost art of keeping secrets stelt op zich niet zoveel voor - erg veel gebeurt er niet - maar hier en daar staat er een mooie oneliner. Gelukkig voor jullie vind ik die mooi genoeg om over te typen, zodat jullie ervan kunnen genieten zonder de rest van het boek te moeten lezen.

Misschien nog even kaderen dat het boek zich afspeelt in het Londen uit de jaren vijftig van de vorige eeuw, na de Tweede Wereldoorlog dus. En volgens recensies weet het die tijd heel goed weer te geven - iets wat ik uiteraard niet kan beoordelen.

Everything good, everything exciting and everything worth talking about came from across the Atlantic.

[Over Johnnie Ray]

I left the cinema in a daze, stirred with yearning and desire for the first time, jittery and disorientated by the sudden, stomach-flipping onset of adoration for a real man.

When it came down to it, his emotion, his heartache, was something that I understood, where jazz was something I just pretended to understand.

My mother was always talking about 'wearing shoes in', but what she really meant was breaking through the pain barrier so that you no longer notice how much they are pinching.

I've always thought him frightfully attractive in that smouldering sort of way short men can be.

[Over Mark Rothko]

'My nine-year-old son could have painted it.'

'Ah, but he didn't, did he? That's the point, isn't it?'

Mark Rothko

She agreed with Oscar Wilde that only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

[Over Elvis Presley]
'But who's going to remember Elvis Presley in twenty years' time?' I cried. 'No one! But everyone will remember Johnnie!'

Boys, I thought, were more trouble than they were worth. Really, one should stick to books where one sees the hero coming a mile off.