Quotes from Lisa Jewell

That was how she'd once viewed her perfect life: as a series of bad smells and unfulfilled duties, petty worries and late bills.

Because deep down inside, she was scared. Scared of being alone, scared of being an outsider. Scared that she had all of her chances of happiness; and blown each and every one of them.

You knew I would, didn't you?' She smiles sadly. 'Oh, I don't know, I suppose it occurred to me. I would have said something. Soon. I was on the verge. It just didn't seem like first-date kind of fodder.' 'No,' he says softly. 'I get that.' She turns the mug round and round, not sure where to head next with this development.

Why is Nana's house so messy?', she asked after an incongruous moment. Vicky smiled. Ah, well you see, your Nana is a very special lady. She's really quite magical, you know. And when she looks at the world, she sees it in a very special way, like it's a party bag or a toy shop, and she likes to keep bits of it, and she feels sad when she throws things away.

Because that's the thing with getting what you want: all that yearning and dreaming and fantasizing leaves a great big hole that can only be filled with more yearning and dreaming and fantasizing.

softly, "with the little ones. Make it fair." Meg was about to complain but then she took

even though Im no longer with her, she's still a part of me? You know, the part of love that isn't about sex, it doesn't automatically die. Or at least it doesn't have to.

the individual has the key to change themselves. It's buried deep inside each and every one of us and although someone else can help us to find the key, we're the only ones who can use it. And there

All those hopes and dreams and talk of ballerinas and pop stars, concert pianists and boundary-breaking scientists. They all ended up in an office.

She turns off her phone and she rests it on the kitchen counter and feels a wave of relief and weightlessness pass through her. She is unburdened of something she hadn't even known she was carrying.

He] didn't view the less idyllic chapters of his life as the results of "mistakes." He didn't believe in mistakes. He believed in a preordained path, and so far every point on this path had felt right. Every bad relationship had felt right, every shitty job he'd done had felt right - because he'd chosen them.

This is the real world. We are real people. This is real life. And things sometimes happen that don't fit in with how we think the story should go, but we just have to take a deep breath and get on with it, not sit there in the corner sulking because it's not what we were hoping for.

Imagine," she said, her face turning serious for a moment, "imagine if something happened to one of us and there was no Easter egg hunt next year, imagine if everything stopped being perfect—you would wish so hard that you'd taken part today . . .

Listen, Dad, in a family like this, the wife without a child is at the bottom of the heap. Everyone comes before them. Everyone.

And when you hate someone, it leaves deeper scars on your psyche than loving someone ever can.

It's very strange, looking back, how accepting children can be of the oddest scenarios.

Her mother existed entirely in the moment. And she made every moment sparkle.

amazing how boring you can get away with being when you're pretty. No one seems to notice. When you're pretty everyone just assumes you must have a great life. People are so short-sighted, sometimes. People are so stupid. I have a dark past and I have dark thoughts. I do dark things and I scare myself sometimes. I wake in the middle of the night and I've twisted myself

But what do you do with an unattainable crush once it's yours to keep? What does it become? Should there perhaps be a word to describe it? Because that's the thing with getting what you want: all that yearning and dreaming and fantasizing leaves a great big hole that can only be filled with more yearning and dreaming and fantasizing.

with parenting there's a long game and a short game. The aim of the short game is to make your children bearable to live with. Easy to transport. Well behaved in public places. In other words, to make your own life easier. And, yes, you can achieve that with punishments, with discipline, with a clip here and there. But the aim of the long game is to produce a good human being.

didn't know who else to turn to. It gives the person you're trying to manipulate nowhere to go.

I am brave, and I am brilliant, and I am strong..

There was no irony in her tone and Adele was struck by how often women undervalued their own efforts whilst being endlessly impressed by those of their peers.

because I remember being twenty-one and thinking that my personality was a solid thing, that me was set in stone, that I would always feel what I felt and believe what I believed. But now I know that me is fluid and shape-changing. So whatever you're feeling now, it's temporary.