Quotes from Marian Keyes

one thing I've learnt is never to underestimate the confidence of the most unremarkable of men.

Look at me, I believe in the craziest stuff and I have a really fun time.

But I thought that if people behaved like victims they would become victims, if people expected the worst to happen then it invariably did. I could see now how wrong I was. Sometimes people don't volunteer to be victims and they become victims anyway.

I despised him for liking me so much. I wondered how he could settle for so little.

I click to buy it and I'm furious to discover that it's not available in Ireland and they won't post it from abroad and the only place that sells it is Harrods and it's impossible for me to go to Harrods because it's like being trapped in an Escher painting.

Desserts. I ordered banoffee pie.

I hated this business of being grown-up. I hated having to make decisions where I didn't know what was behind the door. I wanted a world where heroes and villains were clearly labeled.

You could have nothing with a teenage daughter in the house, not mascara, not ankle boots, not breadknives, not sedatives; they took everything, selfish little bitches!

Even though she was weird and saved money and hadn't had sex until she got married, I was still very fond of her.

I did all kinds of reckless things that look great if you're driving a fast car. I pulled away form traffic lights with a roar, leaving the other drivers staring bitterly after me - that was called burning them up said Daniel. I drove out in front of other cars - Daniel said that was called cutting them up and while we were stuck in a traffic jam, I winked and smiled at attractive men in other cars - Daniel said that was called acting like a brazen trollop.

A thought struck me: maybe I wouldn't ever be the real me again. Because the only thing that would snap things back to the way they were, would be if he had't died.

If it don't come back, it was never yours. If it comes back, it's yours to keep.

This is...life, where hearts get kicked and bruised and broken, but somehow they still keep beating.

To be able to scratch the sole of my foot using the big toe of the other foot is nothing short of a miracle.

but I couldn't get through the day wearing clothes belonging to elderly people. I am not Alexa Chung

You have the look of someone who'll die under general anaesthetic while having liposuction.

As always she was kitted out in the pristine pastels of baby clothes and her little plimsolls were so white my eyes ached. To look directly at them one would need a piece of cardboard with a hole in it, of the type used for viewing a solar eclipse.

Is this what life is all about? To bring us face to face with our worst fears until they no longer scare us?

In the darkness she wrapped her arms around him and pressed herself against his snuggly warmth, a blissful hum in her veins. She was safe and loved, in bed with her man.

Falling in love leaves you open, relationships mean pain.

Guilt is a self-indulgence.

Perhaps one day in the far-off future, when I'm about eighty-nine, I might look back and say, "When I was a young-ish woman I fell in love with an intense charismatic man. He was way out of my league and when it ended it nearly killed me, but every woman should experience that sort of love once in their lives. Only once, mind, you mightn't survive a second bout. A bit like dengue fever, that way." I

They seem like a different race to me and I make sure never to get into disagreements with them, because any puny thing I say gets dashed on the rocks of their robust, shouty certainty.

Where's that guy with the coffee?' 'I'm here.' Mannix had appeared. 'You went to Costa Rica for the beans?