Quotes from Marian Keyes

Mum insists on calling Sat Nav the Talking Map, like she's a medieval peasant who believes in witchcraft.

But, as we all know, the first law of shopping says that when you're urgently looking for something specific, you've no hope of finding it.

Goodness and happiness were gone for ever and nothing could be retrieved. This was going to end; and end terribly. The last three years had been spent trying to dodge their fate, but it was rushing up to meet them.

because the past had shaped the present, it was more important than the present

paths would have already crossed

When happiness makes a guest appearance in one's life, it's important to make the most of it. It may not stay around for long and when it bas gone wouldn't it be terrible to think that all the time one could have been happy was wasted worrying about when that happiness would be taken away?

Even she couldn't believe she'd spent so much money on household appliance. Money that she could just as easily have spend on handbags or bottles of wine. The only conclusion she could draw was that she was finally grown-up. Which was funny because in her head she was still sixteen and trying to decide what to do when she left school.

Not everyone likes an "ambitious" woman. When it's said about a man it's always in a good way. But a woman? Not so much.

Wasn't this the man who had made hot-water bottles for me every month when I got my period

Perhaps the sadness of a divorce doesn't actually disappear, she realized. Instead you have to incorporate it, learn to coexist with it

Should you live each second to the full, grabbing every opportunity and making as many precious memories as possible? Or should you carefully salt resources away, having a comfortable buffer zone in place, in the event that disaster struck? It was impossible to decide, because you never knew what was coming down the tracks.

That one day you will be happy again. Your life will get better.

Expectations are merely disappointments under construction.') As

You try to disaster-proof your life. But the thing that causes all the trouble is something you'd never even thought about.

Here's the deal: in a perfect world, sanitary protection would be freely available to all.

Those who hadn't experienced the death of a parent [...] had an innocence that flew in the face of reality, an expectation that life would still deliver a fairy-tale ending.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, never mind in ten years' time. I can only live life with the stuff I know.

and Liam was a dead loss from day one, thinking he'd be

I should tell you, Stella, that your clothes are completely unsuitable for this weather.' 'It's okay,' I said, opening my car door. 'I don't plan on wearing them for very long.

Life was all about timing.

It's a curse being dad's 'clever' child. He reads books the way other people take cold showers – they're good for you, but you're not expected to enjoy them.

Sometimes nothing is the very best thing one can do.

He's a waiter, not a Mafia stooge, so what's he going to do? Blac pepper them to death? Compliment them into a coma? Run them over with the dessert trolley?

Because you promised? But you've promised me load of things. Like to cherish me and to love till death do us part.