419 Quotes by Sally Rooney

I was like an empty cup, which Nick had emptied out, and now I had to look at what had spilled out of me: all my delusional beliefs about my own value and my pretensions to being a kind of person I wasn’t. While I was full of these things I couldn’t see them. Now that I was nothing, only an empty glass, I could see everything about myself.

Tempted by the idea of multiple partners? she says. He looks at her. She has an arch expression on her face. Uh, he says. I don’t know. What do you mean? Do you not fantasise about having your own harem? says Peggy. I thought that was a universal thing for men. Oh, right. No, not really.

Shame surrounded her like a shroud. She could hardly see through it. The cloth caught up her breath, prickled on her skin. It was as if her life was over. How long had that feeling lasted? Two weeks, or more? Then it went away, and a certain short chapter of her youth had concluded, and she had survived it, it was done.

At midnight when they all cheered Happy New Year, Connell took Marianne into his arms and kissed her. She could feel, like a physical pressure on her skin, that the others were watching them. Maybe people hadn’t really believed it until then, or else a morbid fascination still lingered over something that had once been scandalous. Maybe they were just curious to observe the chemistry between two people who, over the course of several years, apparently could not leave one another alone.

I concluded that some kinds of reality have an unrealistic effect, which made me think of the theorist Jean Baudrillard, though I had never read his books and these were probably not the issues his writing addressed.

Connell watched Marianne pouring the tea, her smiling manner, “behave yourself,” and he felt in awe of her naturalness, her easy way of moving through the world.

His appearance is like a favorite piece of music to her, sounding a little different each time she hears it.

I isolated myself from criticism so I could behave badly without losing my sense of righteousness.

I’m glad my ancestral homeland could help nourish your class identity.