“I had a choice. I was Louisa Clark from New York or Louisa Clark from Stortfold. Or there might be a whole other Louisa I hadn’t yet met. The key was making sure that anyone you allowed to walk beside you didn’t get to decide which you were, and pin you down like a butterfly in a case. The key was to know that you could always somehow find a way to reinvent yourself again.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Books are what teach you about life. Books teach you empathy. But you can’t buy books if you barely got enough to make rent. So that library is a vital resource! You shut a library, Louisa, you don’t just shut down a building, you shut down hope.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I thought about how you’re shaped so much by the people who surround you, and how careful you have to be in choosing them for this exact reason, and then I thought, despite all that, in the end maybe you have to lose them all in order to truly find yourself.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Know first who you are and then adore yourself accordingly.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“All this nonsense about women having it all. We never could and we never shall. Women always have to make the difficult choices. But there is a great consolation in simply doing something you love.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“You always have one foot in two places. You can never be truly happy because, from the moment you leave, you are two selves, and wherever you are one half of you is always calling to the other.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“If someone likes you, they will stay with you; if they don’t like you enough to stay with you, they aren’t worth being with anyway. You know that. You are a sensible, mature”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“There is a great consolation in simply doing something you love.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I remembered Agnes's words: that we who traveled far from home would always have our hearts in two places. I placed my hand on the candlewick bedspread. And, finally, I wept.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“you can hang on to your hurt out of some misplaced sense of pride, or you can just let go and relish whatever precious time you have.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“You shut down a library Louisa, you don't just shut down a building, you shut down hope.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Books are what teach you about life. Books teach you empathy.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“The key was making sure that anyone you allowed to walk beside you didn’t get to decide which you were, and pin you down like a butterfly in a case. The key was to know that you could always somehow find a way to reinvent yourself again.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“You had to seize the day. You had to embrace opportunities as they came. You had to be the kind of person who said yes.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I know this – nobody gets everything. And we immigrants know this more than anyone. You always have one foot in two places. You can never be truly happy because, from the moment you leave, you are two selves, and wherever you are one half of you is always calling to the other. This is our price, Louisa. This is the cost of who we are.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Reader, I did the stupid thing. I looked her up on Facebook. It didn't take more than forty minutes to filter this Katie Ingram from the other hundred or so. Her profile was unlocked, and contained the logo for the NHS. Her job description said: "Paramedic: Love My Job!!!" She had hair that could have been red or strawberry blond, it was hard to tell from the photographs, and she was possibly in her late twenties, pretty, with a snub nose. In the first thirty photographs she had posted she was laughing with friends, frozen in the middle of Good Times. She looked annoyingly good in a bikini (Skiathos 2014!! What a laugh!!!!!), she had a small, hairy dog, a penchant for vertiginously high heels, and a best friend with long, dark hair who was fond of kissing her cheek in pictures (I briefly entertained the hope that she was gay but she belonged to a Facebook group called: Hands up if you're secretly delighted that Brad Pitt is single again!!).”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I thought how lucky you might be to find not one but two extraordinary men to love - and what a fluke it was if they happened to love you back.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Dean Martin growled at me, as if in agreement. I was going to say something else but trying to work out which of his eyes was actually looking at me was weirdly distracting.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I know this - nobody gets everything. And we immigrants know this more than anyone. You always have one foot in two places. You can never be truly happy because, from the moment you leave, you are two selves, and wherever you are one half of you is always calling to the other.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Across Manhattan the sun glowed orange, the endless sea of glittering skyscrapers reflecting back a peach light, the centre of the world, going about its business. A million lives below me, a million heartbreaks big and small, tales of joy and loss and survival, a million little victories every day.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I thought about the fact that there seemed to be such a high cost to anything a woman chose to do with her life, unless she simply aimed low. But I knew that already, didn’t I? I had come here and it had cost me dear.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Oh, Louisa, you can hang on to your hurt out of some misplaced sense of pride, or you can just let go and relish whatever precious time you have.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. It always does feel strange to be knocked out of your comfort zone.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I think about your sister a lot. I think about Will too. When people we love die young it’s a nudge, reminding us that we shouldn’t take any of it for granted, that we have a duty to make the most of what we have. I feel like I finally get that.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“I thought about how you’re shaped so much by the people who surround you, and how careful you have to be in choosing them for this exact reason, and then I thought, despite all that, in the end maybe you have to lose them all in order to truly find yourself”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“«Te vas a sentir incómoda en tu nuevo mundo durante un tiempo. Siempre es extraño vernos fuera del lugar donde”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“You said . . . nobody would ever hurt me again. You said that. When you came to New York.” My voice emerged from somewhere in my chest. “I never thought for a moment you would be the one to do it.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Felix ignored her for the entire time she was there, breaking off only to wash his bottom with what seemed like almost insulting enthusiasm.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“«La sabiduría y el conocimiento darán estabilidad a tus tiempos».”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
“Nathan poured himself a black coffee and replaced the jug in the”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from Still Me
Jojo Moyes
Born place: in London, England, The United Kingdom
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“None of us is delicate enough to touch anyone else without hurting them a little bit.”
― M. Molly Backes, quote from The Princesses of Iowa
“The truth is, Bob, they need those immigrants. Maine’s been losing its young people—you and I are a perfect case in point. And the truth also is: That’s sad.”
― Elizabeth Strout, quote from The Burgess Boys
“I felt like that kite. Hanging on by a slender thread, with no certainty or control over which direction life would turn me next.”
― Tracy Brogan, quote from Crazy Little Thing
“It is by her that He applies His merits to His members, and that He communicates His virtues, and distributes His graces. She is His Mysterious canal; she is His aqueduct, through which He makes His mercies flow gently and abundantly.”
― St. Louis de Montfort, quote from True Devotion to Mary
“Melinda Pratt rides city bus number twelve to her cello lesson, wearing her mother's jean jacket and only one sock. Hallo, world, says Minna. Minna often addresses the world, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. Bus number twelve is her favorite place for watching, inside and out. The bus passes cars and bicycles and people walking dogs. It passes store windows, and every so often Minna sees her face reflection, two dark eyes in a face as pale as a winter dawn. There are fourteen people on the bus today. Minna stands up to count them. She likes to count people, telephone poles, hats, umbrellas, and, lately, earrings. One girl, sitting directly in front of Minna, has seven earrings, five in one ear. She has wisps of dyed green hair that lie like forsythia buds against her neck.
There are, Minna knows, a king, a past president of the United States, and a beauty queen on the bus. Minna can tell by looking. The king yawns and scratches his ear with his little finger. Scratches, not picks. The beauty queen sleeps, her mouth open, her hair the color of tomatoes not yet ripe. The past preside of the United States reads Teen Love and Body Builder's Annual.
Next to Minna, leaning against the seat, is her cello in its zippered canvas case. Next to her cello is her younger brother, McGrew, who is humming. McGrew always hums. Sometimes he hums sentences, though most often it comes out like singing. McGrew's teachers do not enjoy McGrew answering questions in hums or song. Neither does the school principal, Mr. Ripley. McGrew spends lots of time sitting on the bench outside Mr. Ripley's office, humming.
Today McGrew is humming the newspaper. First the headlines, then the sports section, then the comics. McGrew only laughs at the headlines.
Minna smiles at her brother. He is small and stocky and compact like a suitcase. Minna loves him. McGrew always tells the truth, even when he shouldn't. He is kind. And he lends Minna money from the coffee jar he keeps beneath his mattress.
Minna looks out the bus window and thinks about her life. Her one life. She likes artichokes and blue fingernail polish and Mozart played too fast. She loves baseball, and the month of March because no one else much likes March, and every shade of brown she has ever seen. But this is only one life. Someday, she knows, she will have another life. A better one. McGrew knows this, too. McGrew is ten years old. He knows nearly everything. He knows, for instance, that his older sister, Minna Pratt, age eleven, is sitting patiently next to her cello waiting to be a woman.”
― Patricia MacLachlan, quote from The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
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History and UtopiaBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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