“I hate jealousy. At least it's its own punishment; it makes me feel like hell.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“laughter is cathartic and cleansing, that it's good for the body and the soul, and when it's real it's better than sex.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“You were the best thing in my life … I did love you. I do. As much as I’ve ever loved anyone, as much as I can. It feels like a lot – it takes up my whole heart.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“I love the slow, warming sensation of my body going numb when I drink.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“Little things. The thought of losing them makes them unbearably dear ... I only think of the sweetness. Simple things. The quarter moon, the taste of an orange. The smell of the pages of a new book.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“All my life I've wanted to tell people I love them. Fear usually held me back, that they wouldn't care, or they wouldn't hear, or they would take too much from me once they knew.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“I was small enough to mind that Rudy had a good friend other than me.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“Bad news doesn't hurt as much, if you hear it in good company. It's like, if somebody pushes you out of a 5th floor window and you bounce off an awning, a car roof, and a pile of plastic garbage bags before you smash onto the pavement, you've got a pretty good chance of surviving.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“Fear kills. Protecting yourself backfires eventually. And living in fear of pain isn't really living at all.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“Isabel never despaired, even though I think she knew everything that was going to happen, right from the beginning. There was a Walt Whitman poem she liked, especially the part that went - 'All goes onward and outward,/Nothing collapses/And to die is different from/What anyone supposes/And Luckier.' She tried to believe that, and it gave her some comfort, I know. She was very brave. Always. She hid her anguish and sadness, although I know she felt them. Because she wasn't losing only one person she loved - as we have. She was losing all of them.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“Topics... are what people talk about when they don't know each other well. Topics... are what men talk about.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“Never throw love away, never neglect it. Never assume you'll find better love somewhere else. Take it wherever you're lucky enough to find it, and always try to return it in kind. Don't take so much for granted.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“I just tried to put myself in her place and figure out what would be the scariest thing. If I thought I might be dying. And it was being alone' ... 'To me,' she said, 'the scariest thing is oblivion. Being, and then not being.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“I was thinking in a Scottish brogue, because I'd just heard this guy interviewed on NPR, Lonnie McSomething.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
“An informed customer is a satisfied one.”
― Patricia Gaffney, quote from The Saving Graces
Patricia Gaffney
Born place: Tampa, Florida, The United States
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“(I’ve often noticed that people equate “having a sense of humour” with “being an insensitive moron.”)”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from Finding Audrey
“What sort of funny songs?"
"My balls are swearing my balls are swearing I can't keep my balls from sweating ohhh no."
"How is that funny?" I asked.
"As in the balls of your feet?"
"No, it's like this thing..... Never mind," he said.”
― Anna Carey, quote from Eve
“I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, quote from The Painted Veil
“Keep thinking back about what Mum said about being real and the Velveteen Rabbit book (though frankly have had enough trouble with rabbits in this particular house). My favorite book, she claims of which I have no memory was about how little kids get one toy that they love more than all the others, and even when its fur has been rubbed off, and it's gone saggy with bits missing, the little child still thinks it's the most beautiful toy in the world, and can't bear to be parted from it.
That's how it works, when people really love each other, Mum whispered on the way out in the Debenhams lift, as if she was confessing some hideous and embarrassing secret. But, the thing is, darling, it doesn't happen to ones who have sharp edges, or break if they get dropped, or ones made of silly synthetic stuff that doesn't last. You have to be brave and let the other person know who you are and what you feel.”
― Helen Fielding, quote from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
“With older people, it's quite different. They're reliable, they show you what to do, and there's solidity in their affection.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
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Killers of the Flowe...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.
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