Quotes from book
The Tin Flute

The Tin Flute

Gabrielle RoyOriginal title Bonheur d'occasion (French, 1945)

The Tin Flute , Gabrielle Roy’s first novel, is a classic of Canadian fiction. Imbued with Roy’s brand of compassion and understanding, this story focuses on a family in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal, its struggles to overcome poverty and ignorance, and its search for love.

“But Florentine was still riding the crest of her great wave…When it lifted her high she had to hold her breath. How could she ever again be bothered by these petty everyday cares? Would she ever again feel the old anxiety on hearing these dreadful midnight confidences, in the silence heavy with breathing? The wave that bore her was like a long, slow swell. There were hollows into which she sank with all her thoughts, all her willpower, where she was no more than a wing, a feather, a fringe, borne off ever faster, ever faster…He kissed me on the cheeks. On the eyes! "What's going to happen to us, Florentine? If your father's gone and lost his job again, we'll have to live on what you can give us, poor Florentine. We can always go back on relief…”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 85

“Florentine was now no more than a bright patch on the platform. He managed to see her take out her compact and wipe away the few traces of her tears. He closed his eyes and, as if he were already very far away, cherished that image of Florentine and her powder puff. Then he searched the crowd one last time for her thin, small face and her burning eyes. But she had already turned her back to leave before the train was out of sight.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.379

“Peace has been as bad as war. Peace has killed as many people as war. Peace is as bad. Peace is as bad…”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 313

“On the windowpanes came rattling fistfuls of shot, and the snow whirled and sifted beneath ill-fitting doors, slid in the cracks of windowsills and searched in a frenzy for any refuge against the fury of the wind.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 144

“That was when she recognized love: this torture on seeing someone, the greater torture when he was out of sight, in short, a torture without end.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 139

“For a long time he stood at the window looking at the shining rails. They had always fascinated him. Squinting a little he saw them stretch away to infinity, carrying him off to his rediscovered youth.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.371

“Her shoulders sagging, her back hunched, her eyelids tired, Rose-Anna sewed for the feast, not daring even to sing for fear of frightening off her joy.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 177

“She moved slowly, and her coat, too tight, made her belly stick out more prominently. With the two dollars deep in her purse she wandered off, more uncertain than ever, for now she saw the shining pans and pots and the cloth, so soft to the touch. Her desires grew vast and many, and she left, poorer certainly than when she had come in the store.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.120

“To make war, you had to be filled with love, with a vehement passion, exalted, intoxicated, otherwise the whole thing was inhuman and absurd.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Page. 315
The Tin Flute (1945)

“I'm (Eugene) probably goin' to be promoted, and it'll be more than twenty bucks you'll get then, you just wait. You'll have enough to live on, Ma (Rose-Anna). You won't have to scrape all your life, the rest of us'll see to that.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 237

“Running anywhere, blindly, hating the echo of her footsteps in the silence of the empty streets, Florentine fled from her own fear, fled from herself.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.263

“Because you’d be running after your own unhappiness.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 142

“Home! That was an old word, one of the first the children had ever learned. You used it without thinking, a hundred times a day. It had meant so many different things!.. Home was an elastic word and even meaningless at times….”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.275-276

“…"Would you wait for me?" he asked suddenly, his voice husky and low. "it's not right, but would you wait? Would you you wait till the world is cured again? A year? Two years? Maybe longer! Could you give me all that time, Florentine?" She pulled back from him, wary of his words. What did he mean? "Till the world cured…" What kind of talk was that? She was fearful of what she didn't understand, but felt at that moment she felt their destinies in her hand…”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.335-336

“"That money," she cried, almost vehemently, "you can be sure I won’t lay a hand on it unless there’s terrible need." He looked away. He couldn’t bear to hear her talking about the rents and poverty. Would the two of them ever talk about anything else? Was that what he’d come home for? To hear more complaints? Outside people were hurrying past, almost racing toward the busy streets of town. Others were on their way to the movies. Girls were going out to meet their boyfriends. There was youth in the streets, and all of that was waiting for him.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 235

“Soon she saw the dining room light shining through the parted curtains. Its humble glow provoked a goodness in her heart that was no longer calculating or defiant, nor a kind of currency with which to barter and exchange; what she felt was an infinite, poignant affinity for this life that was her family’s. No longer did it seem harassed and restricting, but rather made beautiful from start to finish like a lighthouse beam before her. Home would take her in, home would cure her. Her hand on the doorknob, she paused for one long, ineffable moment. Then she pushed open the door. And it was as if an arctic wind chilled her frail efforts to make a fresh beginning.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 257

“He realized that Florentine personified this kind of wretched life against which his whole being was in revolt. And in the same moment he understood the feeling that drew him toward her: she was his own poverty, his solitude, his sad childhood, his lonely youth. She was all that he had hated, all that he had left behind him, but also everything that remained intimately linked to him, the most profound part of his nature and the powerful spur of his destiny.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

P 205
The Tin Flute (1945)

“"Don’t preach," said Florentine violently. She was beginning to see the maze of lies and deceptions that lay before her.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.344

“She understood at once, and with the courageous goodwill that sustained her, resigned herself to the fact: there was always a drawback. There had to be. Sometimes it was the lack of light, or a factory nearby, or not enough rooms. Here, it was a railroad.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P.281

“Florentine had grown more or less immune to the charms of spring.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 246

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