Quotes from The Long Goodbye

Meghan O'Rourke ·  306 pages

Rating: (2.7K votes)


“Sometimes you don't even know what you want until you find out you can't have it.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye


“Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye


“One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye


“The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye


“In the months that followed my mother's death, I managed to look like a normal person. I walked the street; I answered my phone; I brushed my teeth; most of the time. But I was not OK. I was in grief. Nothing seemed important. Daily tasks were exhausting. Dishes piled in the sink, knives crusted with strawberry jam. At one point I did not wash my hair for ten days. I felt that I had abruptly arrived at a terrible, insistent truth about the impermanence of everyday.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye



About the author

Meghan O'Rourke
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Your intentions will be good. Without consideration and forethought, however, your actions could still be evil. That is the problem, of course, evil is always easy and resisting it is never so. Evil is relentless; and anyone, if they tire, if they are not vigilant, can fall prey to it.”
― Michael A. Stackpole, quote from I, Jedi


“Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity”
― Gretchen Rubin, quote from The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun


“I'm pretty sure I just got groped while buying toothpaste," Ty told him with a frown as he struggled with the tiny buttons of his shirt. "By a tiny little old lady with dead butterflies on her hat.”
― Abigail Roux, quote from Fish & Chips


“Gravelip, a young, slight footman with a pocked nose and large ears, obediently gave a smile like toothache. He seemed less than delighted to have outpaced his friends in the ugliness race.”
― Frances Hardinge, quote from Fly Trap


“A gain I saw that under the sun the race is
not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise,
nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to men of skill
but time and chance happen to them all.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Time and Chance


Interesting books

The Woodlanders
(12.4K)
The Woodlanders
by Thomas Hardy
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
(24.1K)
Slouching Towards Be...
by Joan Didion
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
(27.7K)
The Gentleman's Guid...
by Mackenzi Lee
In the Forests of the Night
(13.2K)
In the Forests of th...
by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Golden Trail
(18.1K)
Golden Trail
by Kristen Ashley
My Soul to Keep
(18.4K)
My Soul to Keep
by Rachel Vincent

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters 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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.