Quotes from Lisa Jewell

the sheep and the sea and the sweet meadow air.

her and Walter on to the internet for people to gawp at and to judge makes her feel queasy. But she's happy for others to do so. She's a consummate lurker. She never posts, she never comments, she never likes. She just looks.

Adrenaline blasted a path through her tiredness.

The weakness of men lay at the root of every bad thing that had ever happened.

She tries to imagine what he must have looked like reeling into a hotel at four in the morning, his bright red hair awry, breathing the putrid breath of a long night of alcohol and rich foods into the receptionist's face, before collapsing into a hotel bed and snoring violently in an empty room.

And I'm so sorry that I am such a loser. That I make such shit choices all the time, that I am fucking thirty-three and I don't own anything and that you have to keep propping me up and bailing me out and that I can't even make a marriage last for longer than two months.' She sniffed and wiped tears from her cheeks. 'And I'm sorry that I'm all you've got. You deserve better than me, Dad, you really, really do. I'm so sorry.

But here was his lovely dad who did not understand what Rory had

Being a good dancer, for example. Great on a second date, but not so important fifteen years down the road with two children, two careers and a future to worry about. At eight fifteen Nathan

Plus, you know, some fathers and daughters just have that sort of thing, don't they? Daddy's girls. They usually turn into the sort of women who can only be friends with men.

Moving on is something that happens to you, not something you do. That's what people don't realize. Moving on is not proactive. It's organic. Be kind to yourself.

and charismatic stranger who sweeps

when I thought I was all alone in the world, there'd been a cast of people waiting in the background for me to come back to them, they'd been there all along. They picked me up and they took me with them.

Yes," says Dido, her gaze resolutely on her computer screen. "OK. And by the way"—she looks up suddenly—"I've read every single Agatha Christie novel ever published. Twice. So I might even be quite useful.

But you loved her, right?' 'Of course. And I still do. But it's terrifying to think that I never knew her at all. Not even a tiny bit.

It all happened so slowly, yet so extraordinarily quickly, the change to our parents, to our home, to our lives after they arrived. But that first night, when Birdie appeared on our front step with two large suitcases and a cat in a wicker box, we could never have guessed the impact she would have, the other people she would bring into our lives, that it would all end the way it did.

But, Josie, think about it. Erin has been abused under your roof for years. You've done nothing to protect her. She waits until you're out of the house before she uses the bathroom. What on earth makes you think she's going to get in touch with you?

But, what if it's not a mistake? What if it's true? Well then, my angel... you'll be a very rich woman indeed.

strikes of lightning. She saw her mother, stirring a teabag in a mug. She saw her father

She would come out of the other side of her separation from Michael cleansed of the shittiness of men and of the ways in which she behaved when she was around them.

But he's your boyfriend?" "Partner," she said, "he's my partner. I don't own him. He doesn't own me. All that matters is his happiness." "Yes," I said thoughtfully. "But what about yours?" She didn't reply. My

They weren't bad books," Phin countered patiently. "They were books that you didn't enjoy. It's not the same thing at all. The only bad books are books that are so badly written that no one will publish them. Any book that has been published is going to be a 'good book' for someone." I

Walter didn't really have much to do with the girls' schooling, especially after all that business with the social services when Erin was in year six.

She knew how to love them, but never to care for them. And if she'd had a shred of normal, decent—God, I don't know—humanity, she would not have left me with all this. All her disgusting filth and shit and mess! It's all just so, so, lurid. My whole revolting family. Just one disgusting lurid thing after another." She brought herself to a sudden halt. Too much. Way too much.

She says this with a strange certainty, as if the world were not full of dangerous people who prey on the vulnerable, as if nothing bad could possibly have happened to her daughter between three o'clock on Saturday morning and now.