Toni Jordan > Quotes

“Most people miss their whole lives, you know. Listen, life isn't when you are standing on top of a mountain looking at a sunset. Life isn't waiting at the alter or the moment your child is born or that time you were swimming in a deep water and a dolphin came up alongside you. These are fragments. 10 or 12 grains of sand spread throughout your entire existence. These are not life. Life is brushing your teeth or making a sandwich or watching the news or waiting for the bus. Or walking. Every day, thousands of tiny events happen and if you're not watching, if you're not careful, if you don't capture them and make them COUNT, your could miss it. You could miss your whole life.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“Don't tell anyone at the church this, but I think girls going out with girls is quite sensible. Imagine not having to do all the housework, and if you found a nice girl the same size you'd have double the wardrobe and you'd never have to shave your legs or clean whiskers out of the sink. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. Not it's fine, provided you stay that way. It's the changing back to men that sends you mad.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“4 is the worst time to wake up, as anyone with the normal human sensitivities will tell you. Far too late to make a cup of tea or go back to sleep. Far too early to get up and do something constructive. There's nothing on television but arrogant evangelists and people selling acne solutions and motivational tapes. For me, base 12 philosophy aside, midnight is not the witching hour. 4:00 is.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“But the human mind has a talent for ignoring what is inconvenient for it to notice. A built-in delete key to soften the blows of regret or guilt.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“And if I was Lisa Marie Presley and I'd told you I was going to marry Michael Jackson because I liked the shape of his nose, or rather, noses, and he's just a sweet boy who loves children, I mean really loves children, and his dramatic change in appearance was undoubtedly a result of a genuine bona fide skin disease, would you have said anything?”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“In my own single bed, I know. I know its width and length in hand spans and kicks and there is no spot so far from my body that it cannot feel the heat of my blood. A double bed is a dare, a question. A single bed is complete with just me in it. A double bed is a vacant promise. A threatening Miss Havisham. The thought of having one in my house makes my lower back ache. I wouldn't know how to lie in it.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“Of all the sad rituals of this inconsequential life, dating must be the saddest of all.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“I have always been a slow eater. I give each mouthful the attention it deserves. Chew each mouthful 30 times, they say, and you'll never be sick. I've never been sick a day in my life.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“You must know this. People disappear. They just go puff. Thin air. Every time you see someone, you never know if you're seeing them for the last time. Drink them in, Alec. Kiss them. It's very important. Never let anyone say goodbye, even for a little while, without kissing them. Press your lips against the people you love. Hands, they can touch anything. Open doors, hold cameras, hang clothes on the line. It's lips that matter.”
― Toni Jordan, Nine Days

“He gives me all his numbers and writes mine down on a tram ticket. I am listening hard, but he doesn't say "I'll call you.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“Hey,’ I yell, through the closed door. ‘Why is the water in your toilet bowl blue?’ ‘Because orange stripes are so last year,’ she yells back.”
― Toni Jordan, Nine Days

“Books are time travel and space travel and mood-altering drugs. They are mind-melds and telepathy and past-life regression. How people can stand here and not sense the magic in them - it's inconceivable to her.”
― Toni Jordan, The Fragments

“People who work out are so gullible. They think they'll live longer. Well, good luck to them. It's a shame most of them aren't bright enough to realise that the extra time added to their life when they're eighty and too old to do anything productive with it is roughly equal to all the time wasted in the gym when they're young and capable of having fun.”
― Toni Jordan, Nine Days

“I think 'write what you know' is the single worst piece of writing advice. Instead, write what you're really interested in. Write what is going to keep you awake at night; write what you don't understand; write to figure something out. Good novels are journeys into the unknown, for their authors as well as their readers.”
― Toni Jordan

“This isn't just a story. This is...a way to understand the world, passed down from person to person, and changing each one on the way. It's the smell, the touch. Books are art that talks to us.”
― Toni Jordan, The Fragments

“And here is the most wonderful thing of all. I have had one night with the man of my heart and, just this once, I have had something that I wanted. Whatever happens, I will keep this night stored away like the linen in my glory box, his breath on my skin, the small hollow at the base of his throat soft on my lips. I will have that night forever. I can hardly believe my good fortune. Everything will be all right.”
― Toni Jordan, Nine Days

“As soon as Mia was out of sight, Gloria’s smile shrivelled. She slammed the passenger door and raised her sunglasses to sit on her head. Then she looked across the bonnet of the ute through the windscreen, right into Simon’s eyes. The paint of the bonnet started to bubble and the windscreen glass began to soften and melt.”
― Toni Jordan, Dinner with the Schnabels

“The only thing that gives our life meaning is the knowledge that eventually we will all die. All of us. That’s what makes each minute important. Without the ability to count our days, our hours, our loved ones… there’s no meaning. Without counting, our lives are unexamined. Not valued. Not precious. This consciousness, this ability to rejoice when we gain something and grieve when we lose something - this is what separates us from other animals.”
― Toni Jordan, Addition

“To spend her days reading and growing things. Could there be any better life?”
― Toni Jordan, The Fragments

“You don't understand," she says. "It's my fault."
"Darling, don't say that. Don't even think it." I try to reach my arm around her back, but she pulls away.
She squeezes the bag to her chest. "It's true," she says. "I haven't been the perfect wife. I've done things I regret, I know that now. Stupid things. But I never thought it'd come to this." She grabs me by the arm. There's a mad kind of look that could lead to anything. "I blame myself, at least for part of it. I have to go after him. I'm not going to rot away, the way Mum did. I need him to see me. This is my last chance."
So of course I find her keys, and her phone, and I think about what to tell the girls while she books her flight to Noosa.”
― Toni Jordan, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts

“And he is bewildered and beatific and so pretty, prettier than a hundred roses or a thousand stars, and it strikes me there is no one like him and there never will be. Not now, not if I live to be a hundred.”
― Toni Jordan, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts

“Simon didn’t believe in psychics but in the first few years after meeting Gloria, he did wonder. She showed remarkable accuracy about future events, it couldn’t be denied. Now he thought that her gift wasn’t prognostication, it was command. The very universe itself was nervous about going against her wishes.”
― Toni Jordan, Dinner with the Schnabels

“Because when in doubt, resort to good manners.”
― Toni Jordan, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts