But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all. There are so many versions of ourselves we can choose to be.
Even if you do not feel it now, there is pleasure to be had from being a decent person.
I believe that when two people are in love, the way that we are in love, the love lasts, whatever else happens.
You have to decide to let yourself be happy.
The morning sagged and decided to last for several years. I couldn’t remember the last time minutes and hours stretched so interminably.
And there is the bare truth of it, for her and all the women around here. Doesn’t matter how smart you are, how clever, how self-reliant – you can always be bettered by a stupid man with a gun.
And I ordered the cheesecake.
There is nothing more disconcerting to passers-by than to see a man in a wheelchair pleading with a woman who is meant to be looking after him. It’s apparently not really the done thing to be angry with your disabled charge. Especially.
She didn’t want to end up like some girls from her school, exhausted and pushing prams in their mid-twenties, financially dependent on husbands they seemed to despise.
Knowledge is power, Clark.
This is the story of a family who didn’t fit in. A little girl who was a bit geeky and liked maths more than makeup. And a boy who liked makeup and didn’t fit into any tribes.
The most enjoyable element of Kentucky society, she observed, was the endless stories: the misfortunes of families, gossip about neighbors – every anecdote served up beautifully formed and with a punch-line that would leave the table rocking with laughter. If there was more than one raconteur at the table it would swiftly become a competitive sport.
Don’t think of me too often... Just live well. Just live.
They were like animals, men. They found too much direct contact threatening.
Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.
Every act has a consequence. In my view the world divides into people who can see that, and make a decision accordingly, and those who just go for what feels good at the time.
He talked to her in the way that people tell lifelong secrets to fellow passengers in railway carriages.
She is one of those people who are completely calm and competent, and as a result no one ever messes with her.
Every time you get a chance to move forward, you just hijack your own future. it’s like – you don’t actually want to... You’re in control of your own life. And yet you act like you’re permanently buffeted by events outside your control.
It was a terrible thing to discover you no longer wanted the life that stretched out ahead of you.