All that counts is the truth. Without it you’re basically just juggling people’s daft ideas.
You don’t have to let that one thing be the thing that defines you.
I loved a man who had opened up a world to me but hadn’t loved me enough to stay in it.
The only way to avoid being left behind was to start moving.
It is important not to turn the dead into saints. Nobody can walk in the shadow of a saint.
Too many people follow their own happiness without a thought for the damage they leave in their wake.
You never know what will happen when you fall from a great height.
Losing him was like having a hole shot straight through me, a painful, constant reminder, an absence I could never fill.
No journey out of grief was straightforward. There would be good days and bad days.
Books are what teach you about life. Books teach you empathy. But you can’t buy books if you barely got enough to make rent. So that library is a vital resource! You shut a library, Louisa, you don’t just shut down a building, you shut down hope.
I think people get bored of grief,” said Natasha. “It’s like you’re allowed some unspoken allotted time – six months maybe – and then they get faintly irritated that you’re not ‘better,’ like you’re being self-indulgent hanging on to your unhappiness.
Life is short, right? We both know that. Well, what if you’re my chance? What if you are the thing that’s actually going to make me happiest?
I thought about how you’re shaped so much by the people who surround you, and how careful you have to be in choosing them for this exact reason, and then I thought, despite all that, in the end maybe you have to lose them all in order to truly find yourself.
I swallowed. “Mum, you’re not going to get divorced, are you?” Her eyes shot open. “Divorced? I’m a good Catholic girl, Louisa. We don’t divorce. We just make our men suffer for all eternity.” She waited just for a moment, and then she started to laugh.
I had a choice. I was Louisa Clark from New York or Louisa Clark from Stortfold. Or there might be a whole other Louisa I hadn’t yet met. The key was making sure that anyone you allowed to walk beside you didn’t get to decide which you were, and pin you down like a butterfly in a case. The key was to know that you could always somehow find a way to reinvent yourself again.
There is always a way out of a situation. Might be ugly. Might leave you feeling like the earth had gone and shifted under your feet. But there is always a way around.
I’m still a doughnut, okay?” I said. “I want to be a bun. I really do. But I’m still a doughnut.
Hey, Lou!” she yelled. “I meant to say to you. Moving on doesn’t mean you loved my dad any less, you know. I’m pretty sure even he would tell you that.
There is a great consolation in simply doing something you love.
We all make mistakes. Go and take your punishment, then come back and start again.