Elizabeth Noble

“Why was it that, sometimes, you needed to see people closest to you as others saw them to remember how fantastic they were? Why couldn't you always remember that?”

“You made new rules for the people you loved. They weren't subject to the same judgment criteria you reserved for the rest of the world. In some ways you were way easier on them, and in others, much harder.”

“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.”

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

“You care about me. We're in a room together, with a hundred other people, and you know ehre I am, who I'm talking to. We enjoy each other. We're a bit alike, but different enough. You see things in me that you don't see in your wife and you know, deep down, that if we had met in another time, when it wasn't impossible for anything to happen between us, that we could have had something. And you think it might have been spetacular. And you know you might be a different person if you were with me, and that scares the hell out of you. And when youve had a few drinks, you fancy the arse off me." (...)He gave her a little sideways smile. "Nearly right."She raised an eyebrow. God, this felt good. (...)"Just to be sure we're both clear on this, I'm about to kiss you, Lucy.”

“Like sisters throughout time, whatever battles raged between them, it was always, always, all four of them against the rest of the world.”

“It couldn't last of course. They both knew it. Not the evening, Not the holiday.”

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

“I don't remember why it all went so wrong. I mean, I do remember. I remember what i did. I just don't remember why anymore. This - you and me - this feels so right. It just seems stupid - so stupid - that we had it before, and we let it go. We wasted so much time. I'm sorry.' She was close to tears.'Hey. Don't. There's no point in that. It's the past, and that's where it belongs. This is us now. We're here.'But where's here? We're hiding out. We're playing house. This isn't real life.''It feels real to me.''But it isn't.”

“I can't believe you came all this way, No one ever did anything like that for me before.' His eyes bored into her. 'No one ever loved you the way i love you, Susie.”

“Death before Decaf!”

“You've got the wrong criteria." Huh?" You need to make more intellectual decisions, fewer emotional ones..." 'Decisions' came out a bit slurred. What the hell are you talking about?" You need to go for someone who won't let you down." How are you supposed to know if someone's going to let you down or not?”

“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. ”

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

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

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

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

“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. ”

“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. ”

“amanda lifted a large handful of pictures out of the box and dropped them into her lap, flicking through them as they fall. they told a thousand stories, didn't they? the pictures of your life. but they left a lot out, too. ”

“she was a person, jen, and people aren't perfect. and she wasn't perfect. and that's okay”

“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. ”

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

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

“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. ”

“life's too short, after all, isn't it? not to do the things you want - the things that make you happy? hannah had been thinking that quite a lot t. oday”

“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. ”

“i want to live. simple as that. we all do, don't we?”

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

“and even if he knew the answer, he would keep on doing this. because, the thing was, he loved her. he couldn't walk away if he wanted to. ”

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

“when she was younger, hannah liked to feel sad, so long as it was artifical sad' that was what she called it when the sadness was about something that wasn't real”

“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. ”

“I mean, I’ve always loved her, we’ve been best mates for years. When I started this thing, I thought that maybe, maybe there was something else – the germ of something else that could happen between us. But I don’t think I was entirely serious. It was speculative, you know. But, bloody hell, it’s bitten me in the arse. And now I love her. I think about her all the time. When I’m not with her, I’m just waiting for the next time I can be, and when I am, I’m just really happy. She’s funny, and smart, and.. gorgeous. I love her. Never felt like this before. Want-to-marry-her-and-be-with-her-all-the-rest-of-my-life kind of love her.”

“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.”