Quotes from Liane Moriarty

I was stunned. I'm not sure why. I think I just never expected him to be importante enough to make any significant changes in his life, but of course, he doesn't know that he's only a minor character in my life. He's the star of his own life, and I'm the minor character. and fair enough too.

Alice had yearned to be a little disruptive, but she couldn't work out how you got started.

The doctors would fix her head and everything would be OK. She began shoving things back into the backpack. As she picked up the leather-bound diary, a photo fell out. It was a photo of three children in school uniform. It was obviously a posed shot because they were sitting in a row on a step with their elbows on their knees and their chins in their hands. There were two girls and a boy. The boy was in the middle. He had

if it were part of a systematic approach they were taking to being well-rounded, self-actualised people: We exercise regularly, we go to the theatre, we read the right novels, not just the Man Booker shortlist but the Man Booker longlist, we see the right exhibitions and we take a real interest in international politics, social issues and our friends' cute children.

I'd be at work, where people respected my opinions," said Nick. "And then I'd come home and it was like I was the village idiot. I'd pack the dishwasher the wrong way. I'd pick the wrong clothes for the children. I stopped offering to help. It wasn't worth the criticism.

The girl said, 'Sometimes you locked me in my room with only water. I had to ration the water. That was a terrible thing to do to a little girl. I thought I would be there forever. I thought I would die. I think I might have come close to dying. A few times.

She's very loving—maybe too loving. I remember her squatting down in the kitchen saying, 'Hello, little fella,' and we all looked down and saw she was trying to pat a cockroach. Mum nearly dropped dead on the spot.

She felt as if she needed to run crazily across a huge expanse of grass, flinging her body about like a puppy let off its leash.

Listeria, wisteria. Ha. Funny words. She

staring at herself in speckled mirrors with a dizzy feeling of dissociation as she tried to work out who she really was without people who loved her to reflect back her personality.

She always forgot how pain was so upsetting. Cruel. It hurt your feelings. You just wanted it to stop, please, right now.

It gave me a shock. A sudden shock of indescribable pain, like when you're a kid, and you're hit on the nose with a basketball on a cold morning, and you cannot believe how much it hurts, and your friends all laugh and you want your mother so bad.

I wish my memories would blur a bit,' Savannah had said, looking into her glass. 'I remember everything. The details never fade.

All her children would be single. All possible grandchildren swept off the table in one fell swoop. It would knock her for six, as their father would say. He hated cricket, but liked that particular sporting colloquialism.

It was like every fight she'd ever had with her sisters. A wave of rage would sweep her up and carry her high and righteous until she did something embarrassingly excessive. Then it would dump her, splat, leaving her stupid and small.

She was busy thinking about the concept of forgiveness. It was such a lovely, generous idea when it wasn't linked to something awful that needed forgiving.

Stay still. Stop talking. Stop wanting. Just be. You'll hear it, or feel it. Close your eyes and you'll see it.

It was interesting how you could say things when you were walking that you might not otherwise have said with the pressure of eye contact across a table.

Nothing is rigid. Things change. You can change your mind. You can change your thinking.

squidgiest fraction

There were breakfasts when Nick was away for work. She ate her toast in bed when he was away, relishing the romantic pain of missing him, as if he were a sailor or soldier. It was like enjoying feeling hungry when you knew you'd be having a huge dinner.

Only those who have feared they will lose everything feel true gratitude for their lucky lives.

Separation anxiety was the very first label Joy heard applied to her oldest child, the first of many labels she'd hear over the years, but Joy had felt no sense of foreboding when she heard that first one. She'd felt foolish pride: my child can't bear to be separated from me! That's how much she loves me. Amy used to cling to her like a koala, her face pressed against Joy's collarbone.

Troy couldn't make himself care or focus. The market was quiet, but not that quiet. His heart wasn't in it. He'd made only one trade in the last two hours. That was a signal he should stop for the day, according to his own rules, and rule number one was Follow Your Own Rules.