419 Quotes by Sally Rooney

And isn’t death just the apocalypse in the first person?

He has never sincerely wanted Marianne to forget about him. That’s the only part of himself he wants to protect, the part that exists inside her.

I was going through a second upbringing: learning a new set of assumptions, and feigning a greater level of understanding than I really possessed.

Sometimes she made him laugh, but other days he was taciturn, inscrutable, and after he left she would feel high, nervous, at once energetic and terribly drained.

But if you think there’s any chance that I could make you happy, I wish you would let me try. Because it’s the only thing I really want to do with my life.

Denise decided a long time ago that it is acceptable for men to use aggression toward Marianne as a way of expressing themselves. As a child Marianne resisted, but now she simply detaches, as if it isn’t of any interest to her, which in a way it isn’t. Denise considers this a symptom of her daughter’s frigid and unlovable personality. She believes Marianne lacks “warmth,” by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.

Connell was laughing at nothing, just because so much excitement demanded some kind of outward expression and he didn’t want to cry.

No. I was frustrated sometimes but not lonely. I never feel lonely when I’m with you.

I’m sorry, he said. I’m just finding you kind of hostile. You’re interpreting your failure to hurt me as hostility on my part, I said. That’s interesting.