166 Quotes by Lisa Jewell

When she left, she took with her any sense I had of myself as a worthwhile person. Without her I was just this blank space. When she died my whole world turned black.

She didn’t need ‘little chunks of home’. They were like slightly sinister postcards from old enemies.

Adele was struck by how often women undervalued their own efforts while being endlessly impressed by those of their peers.

I know as well as you do that only the individual has the key to change themselves. It’s buried deep inside each and every one of us and although someone else can help us to find the key, we’re the only ones who can use it.

I know I keep coming here and telling you that I’m growing up, but before I used to think that being grown up meant doing grown-up things. Now I know that’s not true, that being a grown-up is not about getting married, about smart flats and reading groups; it’s about taking responsibility for your own actions and the consequences of those actions.

Freedom came in strange forms and from unexpected directions.

The human memory is such a cruel, frustrating thing, the way it just discards things without asking permission, precious things.

But until you’ve experienced the incredible mix of emotions that a sibling brings to your life it’s really very hard to imagine. The love and the hate, the fun and the fights, the rivalry and the kinship. No one else knows your world like a sibling does. They’re there, every crap summer holiday, every day off school, every time your parents argue, every boring Christmas Day, every birthday party, they’re there. And they are a part of you.

I’m talking about kids, Mrs. H. Terrible, dreadful, blasted awful kids. They’ve all got a darkness inside them. They’ve all got the capacity for evil. Give them free range over a piece of territory, like that out there, and you’ve got Lord of the Flies. You cannot afford to take your eye off the ball for a second. Not for even a second...