Quotes from Liane Moriarty

The last time she had had anything close to an enemy, she was in primary school herself. It had never crossed her mind that sending your child to school would be like going back to school yourself.

It is so strange that you can end up having such polite, awkward conversations with somebody with whom you once shared such intimate moments.

While you are looking at the stars tonight, I want you to reflect on two koans. The first one is this: out of nowhere, the mind comes forth. And the second: show me your original face, the one you had before your parents were born.

The problem was that she wanted to convey strength in all her future interactions with this man, and her soft white body, especially when compared to Masha's Amazonian example, damn her, didn't convey anything much except fifty-two years of good living and a weakness for Lindt chocolate balls.

Last Thursday night she was leading a soft, muffled, pain-free little life. This Thursday night felt like adolescence: exquisitely painful and sharply beautiful.

She quite liked this aspect of her personality: the way her mood could change from melancholy to euphoric because of a breeze or a flavor or a beautiful chord progression. It meant she never had to feel too down about feeling down.

It was like watching someone play the violin beautiffully. You couldn´t conceive how they did it.

He worked on it for over fifteen years before he died in his fifties of complications caused by pneumonia.

She picked up her tea and took it over to the table. Why had she given up wine for Lent? Polly was more sensible. She'd given up strawberry jam. Cecilia had never seen Polly show more than a passing interest in strawberry jam, although now, of course, she was always catching her standing at the open fridge staring at it longingly. The power of denial.

It was just that there were so many different levels of "comfortable," and at Celeste's level no electricity bill could make her cry.

happened," said Pam. She pointed at the big house next door with

Did prisons have air-conditioning? Was it just primary schools that missed out?

She also remade the bed with her crispest, nicest sheets. It was probably time to sleep with him. O h, yes, it was a bit clinical, but that's how it was when you were dating in your thirties. It wasn't hearts and flowers anymore. They weren't sixteen. They weren't religious. They had met on the internet: a dating website. So it was all very clear and upfront. They were both looking for a long-term relationship. They had ticked corresponding boxes to indicate this.

You think terrible things happened on the battlefields, but terrible things happened in ordinary suburban homes.

Jane had tried that with Mothers Group and failed. She just couldn't relate to those bright, chatty women and their bubbly conversations about husbands who weren't "stepping up" and renovations that weren't finished before the baby was born and that hilarious time they were so busy and tired they left the house without putting on any makeup! (Jane, who was wearing no makeup at the time, and never wore makeup, had kept her face blank and benign, while she inwardly shouted: What the fuck?)

Jimmy is looking adoringly down at Connie's dark head. What would it have been like to have a man love you like that? Would it have changed something fundamental in your psyche to wake up each morning knowing that you were loved, that someone wanted to touch your body even when it got all old and wrinkly?

if she thought about that too much and all it implied she could tap into a great well of rage, so she didn't think about it. That was the secret of a happy marriage: step away from the rage.

better—" "This

Your child was a little stranger, constantly changing, disappearing and reintroducing himself to you

Yeah, I'm so crazy. Although probably that was evidence of her lack of craziness. Truly crazy people were too busy being crazy to think about it.

We should Google it. Don't sneer at me.

She could shrink her fears down into innocuous little status updates that drifted away on the news feeds of her friends.

Every marriage, every family, has its mysteries.

She was back on her skates, twirling expertly