Quotes from Jenny Colgan

You know, on the bus, everyone used to read books. But then they were fiddling on their phones or those big phones, I don't know what they're called.

Mark very much believed in exposing cracks to the air. He thought that was the only way anything started to heal.

Vis le moment présent. Ne prends pas de photos, n'essaye pas de saisir cet instant et de le figer pour l'éternité. Goûte à sa juste valeur le spectacle de ces lucioles.

She was at that age now where if she made too much fuss over them everyone assumed she was desperately broody and felt sorry for her, whereas if she wasn't interested enough she was considered bitter and jealous and also secretly desperate for a baby but not able to show it. It was a minefield.

The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things. It would be lovely, wouldn't it, whenever you're going through something difficult, if someone could just tap you on the shoulder and say, "Don't worry, it's completely worth it. It seems like absolutely horrible crap now, but I promise it will all come good in the end," and you could say, "Thank you, Fairy Godmother.

I never understand," he said, shaking his head, "why anyone would go through the trouble of making up new people in this world when there's already billions of the buggers I don't give a shit about.

whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book. Books had been her solace when she was sad, her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down.

She stepped forward and grabbed a huge romance Nina adored from the top of the pile. "Look at this! You already have it." "Yes, I know, but this is the hardback first edition. Look! It's beautiful! Never been read!

And recommend them to other people: books for the brokenhearted and the happy, and people excited to be going on vacation, and people who need to know they aren't alone in the universe, and books for children who really like monkeys, and, well, everything really. And to go places where I'm needed.

the soothing cadence of somebody reading always had a transformative effect on babies; Griffin's theory was that children were evolutionarily engineered to listen to stories, because it stopped them from wandering off into the woods and getting eaten by hairy mammoths.

She couldn't even be jealous; it was something so lovely and far out of reach. It would be like being jealous of Amal Clooney.

She'd read lots of books about people finding new lives, which hadn't helped her mood either, had made her feel more and more trapped and stuck where she was, as if everyone except her was managing to get away and do interesting things.

She is resisting the Internet idea...because she doesn't want to one day tell her children that she posted an ad on the Internet, interviewed twenty-five hopeful candidates, and finally their father turned up and looked good in comparison with the rest of them. It just doesn't seem right.

Even though she had failed, she knew somewhere deep inside that when you were tested with the worst that could happen and you didn't fall apart, then more things were possible than you imagined.

that's how Polbearne wakes up of a morning.

Email was great, but she did miss being excited by the post. That was probably why people did so much Internet shopping, she reckoned. So they had a parcel to look forward to.

JOEL!' 'Sorry . . . that must make me sound like a dickhead.' 'I can't remark professionally on that,' said Mark as Marsha nodded emphatically in the bed next to him.

Well?" "He's a very handsome man," said Lorna. "You'll have to keep him out of Inge-Britt's clutches." "She smells of bacon," said Flora petulantly. "Oh yeah, men hate that," said Lorna.

If you can't enjoy having a motherfucking baby with the motherfucking woman you love, fuck you, son. And also. Fuck you.

She led him up through the now silent garden of the hotel, its fairy lights sparkling among the trees, the revellers inside, or gone home to bed. The early roses gave out their spring scent along with the perfume of bluebells in the deeper grass. And she led him to the sturdy tree trunk, both of them under a spell, a cloud of summer nights and dancing and laughter and music.

When you look at things the same way you've always done, nothing changes. When you change perspective, everything changes.

When you change perspective, everything changes.

Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can't fix anything. And your life might turn out to be full of regrets.

lot with the passport situation. Now, with so many people downsizing and moving to the country, where they had perhaps a couple of goats, some chickens and a hive or two, he'd become a traveling apiarist, consulting and helping people concerned about maintaining bee stocks and reversing the trend of the declining bee population. He also still had an interest in his original cottage, which was now occupied by an elderly