Maggie O'Farrell Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

It is a terrible thing to want something you cannot have. It takes you over. I couldn't think straight because of it. There was no one else, I realized, whom I could possibly tell.

Maggie O'Farrell
Why isn't life better designed so it warns you when terrible things are about to happen?

Maggie O'Farrell
What are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?

Maggie O'Farrell
She liked the way his smile took a long time to arrive and just as long to leave.

Maggie O'Farrell
Gretta sits herself down at the table. Robert has arranged everything she needs: a plate, a knife, a bowl with a spoon, a pat of butter, a jar of jam. It is in such small acts of kindness that people know they are loved.

Maggie O'Farrell
We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.

Maggie O'Farrell
Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.

Maggie O'Farrell
I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in cushioning your insecurities with a system of belief that tells you 'Don't worry. This may be your life but you're not in control. There is something or someone looking out for you — it's already organised.' It's all chance and choice, which is far more frightening.

Maggie O'Farrell
She wanted to say, no. She wanted to say, I have a son, there is a child, this cannot happen. Because you know that no one will ever love them like you do. You know that no one will look after them like you do. You know that it's an impossibility, it's unthinkable that you could be taken away, that you will have to leave them behind.

Maggie O'Farrell