79 Quotes by Maggie O'Farrell

She glanced up to see that her mother was doing the same and she wanted to say, Do you think of her, do you still catch yourself listening for her footsteps, for her voice, for the sound of her breathing at night, because I do, all the time. I still think that one day I might wake and she will be there, next to me, again; there will have been some wrinkle or pleat in time and we will be back to where we were, when she was living and breathing.

We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.

To me, tea taste like dried lawn-clippings, diluted leaf mould, watered-down compost mixed with a dash of bovine bodily fluid.

When you're a child, no one tells you that you are going to die. You have to work it out for yourself.

I have never found it difficult to abandon a group , to go against the alpha male or female. I have never much cared for gangs, for social tribes , for fitting in. I have known since I was very young that the in-crowd isin't my crowd;they are not my people.

THAT THE THINGS IN LIFE WHICH DON’T GO TO PLAN ARE USUALLY MORE IMPORTANT, MORE FORMATIVE, IN THE LONG RUN, THAN THE THINSGS THAT DO

She doesn't like sitting about, no matter what is wrong in life. It does you good to have something ahead of you, regardless how small.

The sound that comes out of him is choked and smothered, like that of an animal forced to bear a great weight. It is a noise of disbelief, of anguish. Anges will never forget it. At the end of her life, when her husband has been dead for years, she will still be able to summon its exact pitch and timbre.

Judith is whimpering, Susanna clutching her hand, so Agnes misses the moment, she misses seeing her son, the shroud see sewed for him, disappearing from view, entering the dark black river-sodden earth. It was there one moment, then she dipped her head to look at Judith and then it was gone. Never to be seen again.