The Thursday Murder Club

In life you have to learn to count the good days. You have to tuck them in your pocket and carry them around with you. So I’m putting today in my pocket and I’m off to bed.

After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever takes your fancy. No one tells you off, except for your doctors and your children.

You can have too much choice in this world. And when everyone has too much choice, it is also much harder to get chosen. And we all want to be chosen.

You always know when it’s your first time, don’t you? But you rarely know when it’s your final time.

It was a well-known fact that there were no calories in homemade cakes.

People without a sense of humor will never forgive you for being funny.

Many years ago, everybody here would wake early because there was much to do and only so many hours in the day. Now they wake early because there is much to do and only so many days left.

It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction.

...There are silly, proper tears now. I'll let them fall. If you don't cry sometimes, you'll end up crying all the time.

If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.

We all have a sob story, but we don't all go around killing people.

Some people love their children more than they love their partner,’ says Ibrahim, ‘and some people love their partner more than their children. And no one can ever admit to either thing.

Donna has always been headstrong, always acted quickly and decisively. Which is a fine quality when you are right, but a liability when you are wrong. It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction.

Well, imagine if we only ever did what we were supposed to,

He’s all the things that can go wrong with men if you leave them to their own devices.

Always look where the action isn't, because that's where the action is.

The sun is up, the skies are blue, and murder is in the air

It was a community, and in Ibrahim's opinion that was how human beings were designed to live. At Coopers Chase, anytime you wanted to be alone, you would simply close your front door, and anytime you wanted to be with people, you would open it up again. If there was a better recipe for happiness than that, then Ibrahim was yet to hear it.

I'm afraid I don't know WTF. I only discovered LOL from Joyce last week

I know the difference between alone and lonely,

because you know that getting out of a garden chair at our age is a military operation. Once you are in one, you can be in it for the day.

If you don’t cry sometimes, you’ll end up crying all the time.

I would never have therapy, because who wants to unravel all that knitting? Not wroth the risk, thank you. My daughter, Joanna, has a therapist, although you'd be hard-pressed to know why if you saw the size of her house.

So every day Elizabeth opens her diary to a date two weeks ahead and writes herself a question. And every day she answers a question she set herself two weeks ago. This is her early-warning system. This is her team of scientists poring over seismology graphs. If there is going to be an earthquake, Elizabeth will be the first to know about it.

Thank you so much for reading The Thursday Mystery Club. Unless you haven’t read it yet and have just turned straight to the acknowledgments, which I accept is a possibility. You must live your life as you choose.

You got to be careful with money. Don't let it be in charge.

Of all the things to lose, to lose one's mind? Let them take a leg or a lung; let them take anything before they take that. Before you become "poor Rosemary" or "poor Frank," catching the last glimpses of the sun and seeing them for what they were. Before there were no more trips, no more games, no more Murder Clubs. Before there was no more you.

At least I have discovered that online dating is not for me. You can have too much choice in this world. And when everyone has too much choice, it is also much harder to get chosen. And we all want to be chosen.

Was he a content man, doing the things he liked alone? Or was he a lonely man making the best out of what he had? Alone, or lonely?