Quotes from Sarah-Kate Lynch

If there's one thing I have learned it's that if you carry on as though nothing strange is happening, it usually stops being strange

This is the thing no one prepares you for where disaster are concerned. There is no ominous black cloud, no spooky chill, no neon sign that flashes: Stop! Please! Go back to bed! There's something really really dreadful waiting to happen around the corner! I beg of you, do not continue!

In my experience nobody gets to lead a totally charmed existence. Nobody escapes the pitfalls of being a human being. It's what seperates us from the zebras. Or that's my theory anyway

If we are all going to have tragedies, if none of us can escape them, then surely we have to learn from them, we have to gain something. And we have to use what we have gained. Those of us who have fought tooth and nail to overcome tragedy are, after all, nothing else, proof that such things can be survived. So we can actually help others survive their tragedies too. As long as they'll let us.

Not for us the difficult poses, not for us the no-pain-no-gain, OK? Because to be truly happy you do not need to be a pretzel, you just need to walk without creaking.

The best thing about flying first class....was that you could be as nutty as a fruitcake and were still treated like the Queen of Sheba.

I've envied you over the years, carving out a different life for yourself, going where the wind blows you. That takes guts. For the briefest sliver in time, the world shimmered and Sugar saw her life as an enviable jewel: a shining gem radiating energy and possibility that no one but she would ever possess, no matter what its deficiencies.

how hard it was to see strength of spirit trumped by weakness of flesh.

It simply had never occurred to Annie during all her years of child-rearing that terrible things would not happen to her children just because she would not do terrible things to anyone else's.

What a strange place it was in which there could be no running water, no dishwasher, no computer, no telephone, no supermarket, none of the things she took for granted, other than the ubiquitous TV aerial, yet the houses were painted to look like jewellery boxes and the people in them clothed themselves to look like jewels.

Ganesh, the elephant-faced god

Where Annie came from, one assumed the worst and worked backwards from there.

Annie would no sooner have ridden with their children on a motorbike than left them overnight in a casino parking lot, but the way a mother feels seeing her babies erupt in unbridled joy? The same, everywhere.

You do not need to worry about being sure right now,' she said. 'You need to laugh, that is all. Just laugh. We will help you.

Time with her daughter had become so precious in recent years that she would happily spend an hour pretending to climb stairs just for the pleasure of doing it next to her.

she had been surprised by a certain sponginess around her belly, her thighs, her hips, her upper arms. She didn't weigh much more — well, not too much — but it was as though what she did weigh had given up paying attention. Her flesh was not bothering to hold itself together anymore

Jacey's eyes hardened. She did not appreciate reality coming along and snapping her thong.

There was probably a technical term for this, but it felt as though at a cellular level something had just rolled over instead of trying again.

Well, darling, you can't eat principles,' her mother said when she complained about this, 'but you can certainly dine out on the memory of them, so good for you.

The thing about a country famous for its bribery is that the people who don't take bribes are very keen you know that about them.

The things you want her to let you in on might be things you're happier not knowing.

Be truthful, gentle and fearless.

Nut up, Ben would have said if he was there, although probably not to her face.

Sugar and the man in the Hawaiian shirt stepped forward and pulled him up. But as they stepped away again, the backs of their hands brushed- it was just the lightest touch, for the briefest of moments, almost nothing more than hair upon hair, yet Sugar felt it like a blowtorch on creme brûlée.