Quotes from Sarra Manning

That was the deal with the really good-looking boys: they automatically assumed you were pining and panting for them and wouldn't be satisfied until you'd had their babies, no matter how ugly their personalities might be.

Despite their difference, because of their differences, they were a perfect mismatched set. Two sides of the same tarnished penny.

Can we have a time-out on the self-criticism for the rest of the evening?" "Not the rest of the evening. I can do about half an hour and then force of habit takes over.

When your mother doesn't want to have the sex talk with you any more but instead wants to talk about the possibility that you might have sex on her soft furnishings, it's a watershed moment in any girl's life. I know I'll remember it fondly for many years to come.

Like, if you're right for someone then shouldn't everything fall into place really easily..?

Do you want to share a black cab?' Black cabs were an extravagance that Neve couldn't afford, not this far away from payday, but that wasn't the reason why she declined. 'No, thank you. I'm perfectly all right with catching the tube.' 'OK, tube it is,' Max agreed, because he was quite obviously emotionally tone deaf and couldn't sense the huge 'kindly bugger off' vibes that Neve was sure she was emitting.

Adorkable is a freeform, loose-knit, organic network of like-minded souls who might get pushed to the ground for the way we think and the way we look and because we're not afraid of who we are, but my God we're looking up at the stars.

I just couldn't understand how you could go from being alive, from having molecules and blood cells constantly shifting around inside you, and thought processes and a mind full of memories and dreams and love and hate, and in just one tiny second these miraculous things stop and you're dead. How could all that disappear? What happened to your soul, your essence, your wonder? Just because a muscle stops beating? It made absolutely no sense.

stayed. I feel like life happens to other people, and I drift in and out of their lives without ever making any kind of impact. I want to matter to someone.

What the hell was an acquisitions consultant? An arms dealer? A white slave trader?

But really it says everything that's wrong about the publishing industry, that a quarter of a million people bought and read a sex and shopping novel that wasn't even written by one of those footballer girlfriends, and yet most of the shortlisted titles on the Orange Prize, which is an award for women writers, don't even sell ten thousand copies. It's just not right.

Being drunk really brought out her inner vicious bitch.

Maybe relationships shoudn´t be such hard work. Like, if you´re right for someone then shouldn´t everything fall into place really easily?

You should never let secrets fester.

It was another of those big life-changing moments when you didn´t know what the next ten seconds would bring but you knew that nothing would ever be the same after.

And being alone and being lonely were two different things but they felt exactly the same: they felt horrible.

Max didn't take his hands off her. As they walked to where he'd parked the hired car, he kept his arm round her shoulders, even though he was carrying her cases in his other hand and they kept bumping him.

Anyway, I don't want anyone else, I just want Vaughn.' It was good to finally say it, as if Grace said it out loud then maybe the universe would get the message and send him back to her.

thought about having one last kiss, but in the end the only way she could leave was to walk away without looking back.

This time she´d totally own the goodbye and leave him wanting more.

And once again, there was a table and several worlds between them.

He didn't say anything and I thought I'd shocked him, because I tend to do that. Not just with Michael but with pretty much anyone who can't deal with being honest and admitting that you have wants and needs and desires and all those other fun things.

It's so stupid how someone touching you - just their skin on your skin - can make you feel all sorts of things you don't want to feel.

Was there a better sound in the world than a champagne cork popping? Hell, no.