Quotes from Tessa Hadley

We'd never seen him before: into the torpor of the suburb his footsteps broke like a signal for adventure on a jaunty trumpet.

Once they had been equal in their separate freedoms. They had set out to have children as lightly as if they were playing house, and now her necessarily domestic life bored him, and she was bound to it in her body and imagination. This imbalance was fated, built into their biology.

This tension of thwarted longing -- even when they were on their own and could do whatever they liked -- was somehow the whole character of their relationship. Sheila was always frantic for the next thing she didn't have from Neil; the sensation was as painful as wire spooled taut in her chest. She wondered sometimes what would become of them if the spool gave way and the tension slackened.

But I didn't want there to be any silences, out of which raw truths might tumble

Other grown-ups, especially women, had learned somehow to live on the surfaces of their bodies, controlling them and presenting a prepared version of them to the world.

I was burning up with scorn for all of them – and I dreaded them too, because their lives were achieved and full beside my thwarted unfinished one

Some people accompany you like this in imagination, long after you've dropped any real connection with them

And it's surprising how quickly you can get used to being loved

He had actually liked me – liked the clear, light, energetic person he saw in me. (I think over time I've become more like that person

And that was it. That's how disaster comes, without any fanfare

And then every so often, as if a switch flicked between two versions of myself, I suddenly wasn't all right

If I was free, if I was just me, then what was I?

If I was free, if I was just me, then what was I? What could I do; what could I become

In order for love to survive, you had to close yourself off to a certain extent.

Sheila thought that passion was a story people dreamed up to save themselves from boredom

she had felt weightless and carefree, as if she could go back to a bright, hard, selfish time when she had only herself to think about.

the substantial outward things that happened to people were more mysterious really than all the invisible turmoil of the inner life, which we set such store by. The highest test was not in what you chose, but in how you lived out what befell you

When you are young and strong you can be sure of springing free of your material envelope through your own vitality; later, any dinginess or fustiness may seep back into you

The gracious thing to do was to accept the beauty of the opportunity if it was given

Heloise marvelled at how calmly Delia talked about herself, not trailing ragged ends of need or display.

Talking about the old days made Kate anything but nostalgic; actually, despite what everybody said about youth, most of her past made her shudder, in sheer disgust and in relief that she didn't have to live it over again.

we're wedged tight into the accident of our moment in history.