Quotes from Joan G. Robinson

When you grow as old as I am you can't any longer say this was someone's fault, and that was someone else's. It isn't so clear when you take a long view. Blame seems to lie everywhere. Or nowhere. Who can say where unhappiness begins?

You can write books, but there's only ever one book that's really you.

She wanted to know about them, not to know them.

Marnie moved nearer and touched her hair. "Dear Anna, I love you more than any girl I've ever known.

Sometimes the gulls came nearer, screaming noisily as they quarreled over small fish in the pools, and sometimes they cried mournfully far away along the beach. Then Anna felt like crying too - not actually, but quietly - inside. They made a sad, and beautiful, and long-ago sound that seemed to remind her of something lovely she had once known - and lost, and never found again. But she did not know what it was.

Yes! Oh, yes! Of course I forgive you! And I love you, Marnie. I shall never forget you, ever!

They sat so still that each of them might have been alone.

You remember I said last night that you were my secret?" Anna nodded. "I knew just what you meant. You're mine.

Didn't you know, you're my secret?

she was a little frightened that first afternoon. There seemed such a huge expanse of water and sky, and so little of herself.

Anna turned away abruptly. "You needn't bother," she said. But the girl held her back. "No, don't go! Don't be such a goose. I want to know you! Don't you want to know me?

It was one of those still, grey, pearly days, with no wind, when sky and water seemed to merge into one, and everything was soft and sad and dreamy.

Yesterday's gone, so has the day before. Don't let's waste today arguing about it.

She knew perfectly well that things like parties and best friends and going to tea with people were fine for everyone else, because everyone else was "inside"--inside some sort of invisible magic circle. But Anna herself was outside. And so these things had nothing to do with her. It was as simple as that.

There was a picture over the bed, a framed sampler in red and blue cross-stitch, with the words Hold fast that which is Good embroidered over a blue anchor. Anna looked at this with mistrust. It was the word "good". Not that she herself was particularly naughty, in fact her school reports quite often gave her a "Good" for Conduct, but in some odd way the word seemed to leave her outside. She didn't feel good…

hurt inside her hardened. She

if she was over-sure of meeting her, that would be the time she would not come.

If you don't look interested nobody'll know you are.

had decided while she was in bed that she would never speak to her again. But she wanted Marnie to see her. She wanted her to look out of her window and see her down there on the staithe, and remember the mean, cruel thing she had done. If

She felt free now. Free and empty. No need to talk to anyone, or be polite, or bother about anything.

Soon the cottage was filled with the familiar, homely smell of frying onions. It escaped from the stove, crept through the kitchen, sniffed along the bottom of the closed front room door and wound its way stealthily up the crooked staircase, even under the door of Anna's bedroom. But even this, the most delicious, hungry-making smell in the world, was unable to rouse her.