Quotes from The Saving Graces

Patricia Gaffney ·  416 pages

Rating: (14.6K votes)


“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



About the author

Patricia Gaffney
Born place: Tampa, Florida, The United States
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Popular quotes

“Weet je wat misschien het vreselijkste is van alle gezegden? "De tijd heelt alle wonden". Maar het is waar. Er blijft altijd een litteken, dat misschien pijn doet als het weer omslaat; maar de wond is op een dag geheeld. Als jongen van een jaar of acht ben ik eens gestruikeld met zon gebogen, puntig nagelschaartje in mijn handen, dat drong diep in mijn knie en ik weet nog precies hoe ik gilde van de pijn. Net als iedereen heb ik dus een litteken op mijn knie, maar ik zou je nu niet kunnen zeggen, op welke. Jij hebt beslist ook littekens, waarvan je je de wonden niet meer kunt herinneren. Daar zit toch iets afschuwelijks in. Dat betekent toch, dat die wonden er achteraf evengoed niet geweest hadden kunnen zijn.”
― Harry Mulisch, quote from The Discovery of Heaven


“Nothing just happens. You always have to strive.”
― Marcus Luttrell, quote from Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10


“Of all the featherless beasts, only man, chained by his self-imposed slavery to the clock, denies the elemental fire and proceeds as best he can about his business, suffering quietly, martyr to his madness. Much to learn.”
― Edward Abbey, quote from Desert Solitaire


“Ah, bella damigella, dignità, virtù e valore non sono riposti solo nell'abbigliamento!" esclamò Balin. "La virilità e l'onore sono celati nella persona, e vi sono molti insigni cavalieri ignoti a tutti, a riprova che il pregio e l'ardimento non hanno alcun rapporto con le vesti che indossano.”
― quote from Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table


“Stefan was the one who ... the one she loved. But he'd never understood that love was not singular. He'd never understood that she could be in love with Damon and that it would never change an atom's worth of her love for him. Or that his lack of understanding had been so wrenching and painful that she had felt torn in two different people at times.”
― L.J. Smith, quote from Midnight


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