Imogen Clark > Quotes

“He never wanted any of my friends round. I had plenty of friends when we first got married, but if they came to visit when he was at home, he’d be rude to them and make them feel uncomfortable. So, eventually, they made excuses and stopped coming.”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards From a Stranger

“But remember, before you rush to judgement, that all mothers are ultimately driven by the same engine, despite their differing makes and models. We are all just doing what we think is best for our children.”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards From a Stranger

“And what she does may not be what she would choose to do in an ideal world; life is all about compromise, after all.”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards From a Stranger

“So many fabulous-looking lives are fake. People only share the good parts and skip over the bad.”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards From a Stranger

“honesty came in many hues between the absolutes of black and white, and she imagined that even honest people generally found a shade of grey that suited them to fit the circumstances.”
― Imogen Clark, An Unwanted Inheritance

“What I didn’t love was the person I became when I was in the shade that he cast around him.”
― Imogen Clark, An Unwanted Inheritance

“Grief was so difficult to deal with after the initial shock had passed. Once the funeral was over and done with, you were simply expected to return to normal and not subject those around you to any outward displays of pain.”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts

“How did people get through the death of their loved ones unscathed? It felt like an impossible task to her, and one that she was totally unprepared for.”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts

“have a passion for the course you’re applying for. It’ll be a piece of cake!”
― Imogen Clark, Impossible to Forget

“Of course, she was fully aware that by failing to face the darkness in her head she was simply prolonging the time that it would take for her to recover,”
― Imogen Clark, Reluctantly Home

“It was just how things were back then. Some men were just like that. Touching your bottom when you walked past, stroking your breast in a crowded lift, having sex with women young enough to be their daughters. We all knew what was going on, of course we did, and we didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it. It was simply a fact of life for women, so we learned to avoid the worst offenders and keep our mouths shut.”
― Imogen Clark, Reluctantly Home

“Every mother has to work this out for herself. She must decide what she thinks is best for her children at any given moment. Yet this decision cannot help but be coloured by so many other factors: her own childhood, her financial position, her partner’s views, her mental fortitude. And what she does may not be what she would choose to do in an ideal world; life is all about compromise, after all.”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards From a Stranger

“There’s nothing from this decade worth playing,’ he replied.”
― Imogen Clark, Impossible to Forget

“As far as I know. The place”
― Imogen Clark, Reluctantly Home

“you never quite managed to reach with friends made later in life. The people who knew you when you were learning to know yourself had a more honest picture. They’d seen you when you were not yet entirely formed, when your outer shell hadn’t quite sealed around you. As a result, there was less pretending”
― Imogen Clark, Impossible to Forget

“Daniel Jackson, was Hope’s boyfriend.”
― Imogen Clark, Impossible to Forget

“to tell her that. Not yet,”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts

“London,”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards From a Stranger

“Would he suddenly wake up one day and discover he was dead?”
― Imogen Clark, An Unwanted Inheritance

“There was something about old friends, she thought, a special depth of understanding that you never quite managed to reach with friends made later in life. The people who knew you when you were learning to know yourself had a more honest picture. They’d seen you when you were not yet entirely formed, when your outer shell hadn’t quite sealed around you. As a result, there was less pretending. Friends like that would never let you get away with the stories that you could spin around yourself with newer people. And even though that could be scarily exposing, it was also good to be around them.”
― Imogen Clark, Impossible to Forget

“Their brother, Peter, weak-chinned and lily-livered, had found himself an equally feeble wife and together they had created a neat ‘one of each’ family, which seemed to work well for them but which was Evelyn’s definition of hell. Peter,”
― Imogen Clark, Reluctantly Home

“Maggie always did this--- asked the question that Angie would rather not know the answer to.”
― Imogen Clark, Impossible to Forget

“her”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts

“I’d got the impression that her family weren’t that close. It was ironic really, because if I’d had any family, other than the kids of course, I’d have made it my business to keep us all tight, a little ball of strength safe against whatever the outside world could hurl at us.”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts

“Gender-defining though the arrangement was, their lives were symbiotic, each one vital to the well-being of the other. It was a true partnership.”
― Imogen Clark, Reluctantly Home

“gave her. Melissa wiped the tears”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts

“I feel like I am being pulled so tight that the slightest bit of extra tension will be all it takes for me to snap.”
― Imogen Clark, Postcards at Christmas

“wheelbarrow”
― Imogen Clark, A Borrowed Path

“It was just stuff – nice stuff, granted, but just stuff nonetheless. None of it really mattered. None of it was actually what was important.”
― Imogen Clark, Reluctantly Home

“I felt much richer than her then. Yes, she’d been to all the places that I was desperate to see, but what was the point of travelling if you didn’t have anything to come home to?”
― Imogen Clark, Where The Story Starts