Quotes from Elizabeth Noble

wasn't there some statistic somewhere she'd read, about where most people meet their spouse, that claimed weddings were the third most popular place, after university and the work place. she was sure that she had. something to do with all that romantic optimism in the air, and too much champagne, no doubt.

ed. now. picking at the scab that was starting to heal over. why did guys do that? too little too late?

but i was young, and i got so cross. in the early days we made up easily. had fun making up, in fact.

You women are all the same. You worry about the wrinkles and the half stone and your boobs dropping, but you don't worry about the sparkle, and that's the best bit. You shouldn't let that go.

The GP, who she called immediately, fingers shaking as she dialled, exclaimed with joy. She didn't thinkdoctors were supposed to do that - register an emotional reaction to an outcome.

They're called cliches because they're true, you know. Besides, life is quite complicated enough...

what was she like? she loved him, really loved him then, for an instant. this, this was easier.

There should be friendship vows. Did you ever think that? When you get married, you promise all that stuff - in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer... But you do that when you're friends, too, don't you? The thick and thin stuff.

i'm not sure either of them had a great capacity for love, that was all. it's funny - mine feels bottomless.

I choose you. And I'll choose you. Over and over and over. Without pause, Without a doubt, in a heartbeat. I'll keep choosing you.

Don't." His voice was harsh. "Don't do that." She exhaled. "You're lovely. Lovelier than before.

Childbirth calls into question our very existence, requiring an expectant couple to confront not only new life but death, pain, fear and, most of all, change.

Before we belonged to anyone else, we were each other's.

could i have loved you better? maybe. if that's true, then i'm sorry. could i have loved you more? i don't think it's possible.

you're my first born child, and the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for her child.

Adulthood isn't black and white - it's a thousand shades of grey. Or taupe. It's not who you are, it's where you are.

the big problem with motherhood of girls, it seems to me, is that we're both women.

she loved to stand in the middle of a market square, or a park, or a beach and take in the smells and the sounds of a world that was completely new to her. she loved being an anonymous extra in a crowd scene, like some real-life where's waldo - a tiny face, wide-eyed with wonder, in a vast, ever-changing picture.

please don't carry my love for you with you forever. but don't let that be all. our capacity to love is vast - all of us. my daughters taught me that. there is room.

all this pain. all this crying. it wasn't that she hadn't expected it. she just underestimated it. it felt like a heavy, dark blanket that had been pulled across all of them. she hadn't know that it would make it difficult to breathe. she hadn't guess that it would seem so enveloping. and so total, and so permanent.

mum's dress. mum loved big parties. she loved dressing up and champagne bubbles tickling her nose, and dancing with her arms above her head, shoes thrown to the edges of the dance floor, and shouting inane happy things at people.

amanda thought about her addiction to being on the move. about whether she was running away or running toward.

and there you go - i was alone, without love, for eight years. and it took me about twenty minutes - over a cappuchino and an egg salad sandwich - to fall in love with him.

i just want my girls to have babies. that's all. so they know what i know.