112 Quotes by Gail Honeyman

"I was fine, perfectly fine on my own, but I needed to keep Mummy happy, keep her calm so she would leave me in peace. A boyfriend—a husband?—might just do the trick. It wasn’t that I needed anyone. I was, as I previously stated, perfectly fine."

"Sul mio cuore ci sono cicatrici altrettanto spesse e deturpanti di quelle che ho in viso. So che ci sono. Spero che resti un po’ di tessuto integro, una chiazza attraverso la quale l’amore possa penetrare e defluire. Lo spero."

"I’m not really sure I know any normal people."

"Anger was good, she'd said, while I was putting my coat on. If I was finally getting in touch with my anger, then I was starting to do some important work, unpicking & addressing things that I'd buried too deep. I hadn't thought about it before, but I suppose I'd never really been angry before now. Irritated, bored, sad, yes, but not actually angry. I supposed she had a point; perhaps things had happened that I ought to feel angry about."

"People don't like facts. If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say."

"There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they're there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope."

"Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are."

"The gilded confines of the Beauty Hall were not my preferred habitat; like the chicken that had laid the eggs for my sandwich, I was more of a free-range creature."

"I could not solve the puzzle of me."

"...In primary school, sports day was the one day of the year when the less academically gifted students could triumph...As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe"