Sharon J. Bolton > Quotes

“If you have to choose between terrible grief and terrible guilt, I think grief is easier, in the end.”
― Sharon Bolton, Little Black Lies

“I was prepared to be lenient when it was my own safety at stake but if he hurts my dog, I will kill him.”
― Sharon Bolton, Little Black Lies

“The people we love fall into two distinct camps, it seems to me. First, those whom we are obliged to care for, connected to us through ties of blood and, occasionally, other people’s marriages. Then there are those few souls who suit us so perfectly that we cannot help but love them. Those whose very presence seems to lift our spirits, soothe our ruffled feathers, tilt the disturbed world so that its axis is true again.”
― Sharon Bolton, Little Black Lies

“There are times when just waking up can feel like the hardest thing anyone could ever ask you to do. The first morning after your child has died, perhaps. Or after the man you adore has walked out. You would give anything, certainly the rest of your life, to stay down in the darkness of not knowing.”
― S.J. Bolton, Dead Scared

“He’ll never know what it would be like, to wake up beside her.”
― S.J. Bolton, Dead Scared

“But death has taken root inside you and you know it will grow, like a cancer with a voice, from now until the day it consumes you whole.”
― S.J. Bolton, Dead Scared

“Every time Tom was tempted to turn back, he made himself think of his brother. Joe, who he sometimes thought had been sent to earth to make his life miserable, who had been a complete pain from the day he was born, who was always getting his own way and who he fantasized about killing at least once a week. Joe, who he really didn't think he could live the rest of his life without.”
― S.J. Bolton

“Scared by the noise, Millie looked down at her brothers. Then she held out both arms and Tom's stomach turned cold. She was going to jump to him, like she did from the back of the sofa. She was going to jump, confident that he'd catch her, like he always did.”
― S.J. Bolton

“She nods and the elephant in the room throws back its head and trumpets so loud I think the roof might come off.”
― Sharon Bolton, Little Black Lies

“THERE ARE TIMES when just waking up can feel like the hardest thing anyone could ever ask you to do. The first morning after your child has died, perhaps. Or after the man you adore has walked out. You would give anything, certainly the rest of your life, to stay down in the darkness of not knowing.
It never happens, though, does it? You always come back to yourself. The world is still there. You are still there...”
― S.J. Bolton

“The sound of running footsteps made them all start. Then the refectory door opened and the round, freckled face of Sister Belinda appeared. She was breathing heavily, and her veil was crooked, showing short tufts of red hair sprouting around her glowing face like unruly weeds in a parched garden.
“Excuse me, Mother, Sisters,” she said. “But there is a police car waiting at the gate and what looks like the Black Maria behind it. Also, another car approaching from the farm and a uniformed constable coming in via the beach path. It would appear that the filth have us surrounded.”
― Sharon Bolton, Dead Woman Walking

“my experience, people who are very keen on The Lord of the Rings can be a bit odd. On the other hand, I was quite a Tolkien fan myself.”
― S.J. Bolton, Dead Scared

“Possibly the two saddest words in the English language: if only.”
― Sharon Bolton, Like This, For Ever

“Amber, he'd decided while they were still at school, was vanadium, strong and useful on the surface, especially when she had others to bounce off, but basically nothing under the hood.”
― Sharon Bolton

“I glanced round to find myself staring into turquoise eyes.”
― S.J. Bolton, Now You See Me

“I wonder what words his headstone might carry: Loving husband, devoted father, merciless killer”
― Sharon J. Bolton, The Craftsman

“OK, I'll tell you what did it for me. In my third year I read a book by some big obstetrical cheese. There was a whole load of bunkum in it, mainly about how all the problems women experience during pregnancy are due to their own small brains. But the bit that really got me was his dictum about new mothers should wash their breasts before and after each feed.'

Gifford was smiling now. 'And that's a problem because . . . ?'

' Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wash your breasts?' From the corner of my eye, I saw someone glance in our direction. ' New mothers can feed their babies ten times or more in twenty-four hours. So, twenty times a day, they're going to strip to the waist, lean over the basin of warm water, give them a good lather, grit their teeth when the soap stings the cracked nipples, dry off and then get dressed again. And all this when the baby is screaming with hunger. I just thought : I don't care how technically brilliant this man is, he should not be in contact with stressed and vulnerable women.”
― S.J. Bolton

“Apparently, when it comes to guilt, a woman can never have too much.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, Little Black Lies

“As the years had gone by, he’d started to ask himself if this crippling guilt would have been less if he’d taken his share of the blame twenty years ago.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, The Pact

“It reminded me of a period I’d prefer to forget, when every mistake I’d ever made had decided it was payback time.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, If Snow Hadn't Fallen

“Stay single,”
― Sharon J. Bolton, The Pact

“Daniel had a sense, then, of them all standing on a jetty, looking out over a freezing lake, knowing they needed to jump and putting it off for as long as they could.”
― Sharon Bolton

“The world’s gone fucking nuts,”
― Sharon J. Bolton, Now You See Me

“glisters is not gold, you know. And you’re right, this water is cold. I need to get out now.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, The Fake Wife

“They reached a wooden bench, dedicated to the memory of someone in whom they had no interest but took advantage of the generosity of his friends all the same, and sat.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, The Pact

“white-suited figures were making their way around the site like phantoms. The scene-of-crime officers had arrived. They would establish an inner cordon around the body and an outer one around the crime scene.”
― S.J. Bolton, Now You See Me

“It gets to you, life on the streets, even when you know that for the moment at least you have somewhere else to go. It’s like you know it’s waiting, always there, for the time when the reins slip between your fingers. Still,”
― S.J. Bolton, Now You See Me

“The trees on either side were very tall and thin, like long, skeletal fingers reaching to the sky. The few remaining leaves were still as stone. Wind that had earlier been racing across the Fens like a possessed soul seemed, at last, to have exhausted itself and the girl could hear nothing. Except”
― S.J. Bolton, Dead Scared

“You know what, Tal, I don’t call twenty years short notice at all. I’d say they’ve had more than enough time. One o’clock. I’ll see you there. Say good night to Dan for me.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, The Pact

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.’ George Carlin”
― Sharon J. Bolton, Sacrifice