Quotes from Liane Moriarty

Oh my Lord...she'd seduced her brother-in-law with butter.

Friendship and holidays. A swimming pool. Champagne and sunshine and laughter. It seemed like a dream life.

She'd noticed before how middle-aged women were obsessed with the topic of age, always laughing about it, moaning about it, going on and on about it, as if the process of aging were a tricky puzzle they were trying to solve. Why were they so mystified by it?

Maybe this doctor was one of those brilliant people who are hopeless with normal stuff like dates.

None of this seems real," said Alice. "I'm like Alice in Wonderland. Remember how much I hated that book? Because nothing made sense. You didn't like it either. We liked things to make sense.

What sort of daughter refuses to go to her mother's house? What sort of daughter speaks with such violence to her mother about buying a new recipe book? She

She wondered if it was similar to how people felt when they first took antidepressants and they lost their pain, but everything else felt muted too: flatter, duller.

He told Harry that he had to win prize money so his sister could get some kind of life-saving medicine. Dumb kid thought he was playing to save his sister's life. No wonder he cheated. If he'd stayed with me, I would have found out and put a stop to

You don't know my age, you darling idiot, so how do you know I look great for it?

A child laughed; a long, gurgling giggle, like a stream of soap bubbles.

She'd paid full price, but life was a competition and she knew non-working wives of wealthy men loved to talk about how they'd saved by bargain-shopping for designer clothes. It was their contribution to the household finances.

He liked his friends, but he had no interest in hearing their personal problems and he therefore couldn't share his own. He

This was the thing with the murky world of the Internet. You swam along through cyberspace, merrily picking up this and that, and next thing you knew you'd stumbled upon something unsavory and ugly.

I can't believe they let us name a person," Nick had said. "It feels like something only the King of the Land should be able to do." "Or the Queen of the Kingdom," Alice said. "Oh, they'd never let a woman name a person," said Nick. "Obviously.

As Jane looked around her, she felt that dissatisfied feeling she often experienced when she was somewhere new and lovely. She couldn't quite articulate it except with the words "if only I were here". This little beachside cafe was so exquisite, she longed to really be there—except, of course, she was there, so it didn't make sense.

If parents had children who were good sleepers, they assumed this was due to their good parenting, not good luck. They followed the rules, and the rules had been proven to work.

He was comfortable in any social situation: garden party or cage fighting contest, it was all the same to Vid, it was all interesting.

Detoxing is a myth, darling, it's been debunked! Your liver does it for you. Or maybe it's your kidneys. It's all taken care of somehow.

She was getting far too used to having someone cook and clean for her. This was what it must be like to be a celebrity. No wonder they were so charismatic and cheerful on talk shows. Joy could feel herself becoming more charismatic and cheerful by the day.

because she might have already kissed him before. No. He pressed his thumb in between her eyebrows. What was he doing? Was it some sort of weird middle-aged-people ritual? Was she meant to do it back to him?

There was no point saying, You mustn't feel responsible. Of course she felt responsible. Denying her regret would be like denying her loss.

It was strange how he'd always made her feel like they were winning as a couple, even when they were breaking up.

So that's how she lived with it. She did it the way so many people lived with their regrets and mistakes. They simply rewrote their stories. Her mother had re-created herself as a devoted mother: as if ballet had been her daughter's favorite extracurricular activity, not her own obsession.

Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages by Susan Weitzman (2000)