Quotes from Harriet Evans

Elle wondered if he had regrets. But she didn't let herself wonder for too long. She had locked her heart up against him, and it would take something extraordinarily strong to break it open.

Are you sure it wouldn't work?" said Jo urgently, in a quiet voice. "Are you sure you don't want to see him again? Laura wanted to laugh. Those were two totally separate things, weren't they?

It's different up here, you know." "I know," said Laura miserably. "I was -- enjoying myself, that's all." Nick watched her for a moment. "Don't look so tragic about it, Laura. It's not a crime to enjoy yourself, you know." "Yes, it is," muttered Laura, feeling as if she were in some biblical parable, the one where the Lord wreaks vengeance on the stupid girl who is a foolish wanton by removing the last shred of common sense in her brain.

It's just odd being a guest at the wedding. When you dreamed about it for so long, even if you we're a different person, and it was years ago. Sounds so stupid. I was stupid.

The trouble is I'm not very good at trusting my own instincts. I've been wrong before. A lot." "About what? You worry too much, about everything. You're to hard on yourself." "I was wrong about Rory -" "You were twenty-five, twenty-six! Everyone's allowed to be in love with the wrong person at some point. In fact, its a mistake not to be.

I hate the fact that it obsesses me so much. Who're we gonna end up with? It's a race, and everyone else is on the tracks and I'm at the wrong venue, with the wrong shoes on." "That's rubbish. He's out there, I promise." "How do you know?" " I don't," said Elle firmly. " I just like to kid myself that he is. And if he's not, well, there's more to life than just hanging around ruining your life waiting for him. Much more.

Life would be easier for some people if it wasn't such a big deal

To know yourself is to know where you're from

What she didn't say was: "Can I punch both your sisters?" "How do you cope with this, all the time?" "Why can't it be the two of us, like it was before?" And, "Do you realize I've fallen for you?

It was completely still, not a sound within or outside. As if it was just the two of them, nothing more in the world, in this room alone.

That happy ending business - it's all a bit contrived. I don't ever believe it." How unromantic. It wasn't true either. The truth was, Elle wanted to believe in happy ever after, more than anything. But to admit it would be to discount what she knew to be the real facts of life. So she didn't know how to admit that she longed, secretly, to have her perspective changed, by something or someone, she didn't know which.

I like the idea of being with someone forever, being married to them.

Elle Remembered Yorkshire road and the flat he shared with Caitlin and their daughter, and she almost stopped and turned back, and then she hardened herself against it. It's his problem if he wants to sleep with someone and he shouldn't, she told herself. It's a one night thing. I'm in the clear. It's sex, nothing else.

She didn't realise it, for a long time, and it wasn't until they were having dinner one evening that he said something that she found funny and she looked at him and thought, Yes. I know you. I know you

Drain your drink, come on. You don't leave a full glass in a pub. Charles II outlawed it.

She knew him so well, the amused, detached tone of his voice, the scroll of his ear, his eyes, his bony frame. Someone whom she always wanted in the room, someone who saw the world the same way, and it had always been like that.

To Felicity, she saw now. Love was something that only really happened within the pages of a book. For long periods of Elle's life, she'd thought that was true, too. But it wasn't. It was you and him, the two of you, a team to face the world together, and that was what she'd been looking for all those years; not an idol, or someone to lust after, or someone to fix her

I wish I'd learned then that when you call someone's bluff you usually win: it's simply not what the other person is expecting. And swimming along in the slipstream of another's current is no way to live.

She knew she could drink up to a certain point, but after that she never did anything interesting like dancing on the bar with her top off or snogging random strangers. She would merely fall over and then probably be sick.

She stood firm, biting her lip. "I asked you a question, Rory. Yes, or no?" He hesitated. "It's not as easy as that." 'It is," said Elle, feeling her heart physically ache. "It has to be. If you won't come to the pub with me, I have to go now, otherwise I'll change my mind, and that would be stupid. Very, very stupid.' She covered her face with her hands, breathing deeply. "As stupid as I've been these past few years... Oh, God, no.

She'd learned now that the only way to write a list was to finish with something you actually wanted to do.

I looked out at the children in the playground below my window: They were running around yelling in the sunshine, and I reflected on how blokes always get the women they want by chasing them until they give in. I'm always amazed that so many men—usually the ugly ones—are convinced they could pull Claudia Schiffer if they were given the chance, while someone gorgeous ... is always convinced blokes don't fancy her. It rarely happens the other way round.

He'd spent enough time in this house, getting into all their business. The way they pulled you all in, all of them, without stopping to ask you if you wanted to - It was crazy, charming, discombobulating.

The world of academia was like a fourteenth-century Florence, riven with internecine strife, internal politics and wordless betrayal.