356 Quotes by Tana French

I’ve been trying not to say it out loud because I don’t want to jinx it. Like a dumb kid; like one of those moaners who believe the universe has it in for them and everything is just looking for an excuse to turn to shite.

In all your life, only a few moments matter. Mostly you never get a good look at them except in hindsight, long after they’ve zipped past you: the moment when you decided whether to talk to that girl, slow down on that blind bend, stop and find that condom. I was lucky, I guess you could call it. I got to see one of mine face-to-face, and recognize it for what it was.

Today Henry would be running a banana republic with serious border issues and a dodgy nuclear-weapons program.

I’m only talking to one person here. If that’s you, then you need to shut up and listen. If it’s not, then you need to shut up because no one’s talking to you.

Sometimes, when you’re close to someone, you miss things. Other people can see them, but you can’t.

They’ve had it spelled out a dozen times, in cringey classes, in cringey parent talks: when to tell an adult. The idea never comes near any of their minds. This thing opening in front of them is nothing to do with those careful speeches. This mix of roaring rage and a shame that stains every cell, this crawling understanding that now their bodies belong to other people’s eyes and hands, not to them: this is something new.

The band was no Led Zeppelin, but they had smart lyrics, a great drummer and that reckless shine that bands did have, back then, when no one had anything to lose and the fact that you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it big didn’t matter, because throwing your whole heart into this band was the only thing that stopped you being just another futureless dole bunny moping in his bedsit. It gave them something: a drop of magic.

I had forgotten that God, or the world, or whatever carves the rules in stone, doesn’t give you time off for good behavior.

You had as good a chance as I did. I told you everything I saw, as I saw it at the time. And if that was in itself deceptive, remember, I told you that, too: I warned you, right from the beginning, that I lie.