Jo Leevers > Quotes

“She knew that an object’s meaning never stopped with its first owner or maker – that was only the start of its story, which could continue like ripples from a skimmed stone.”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances

“Henrietta can feel that familiar blank expression forming on her face, the one that protected her through her lonely schooldays and then university and jobs where nobody spoke to her. It’s the face that hides the rising panic of knowing that she’s failed again.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“She was told she’d been ‘sectioned’ – and she quite liked the sound of that word, imagining how nice it would be if you could do that, slice the parts of your life into neat portions, trimming off the bad bits. If she could, she would cut out her entire marriage and throw it in the sluice bucket, like something bloated and diseased.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“Here it comes again, thinks Henrietta, that old feeling of being on the fringes of a club, discovering that everyone else has been a fully paid-up member for ages while she’s still trying to figure out the rules.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“Remember, grief is the price we pay for love. Be kind to yourselves – the first year will be the hardest – and love yourselves as much as I love you.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“Some people say it gets easier, but I think you just adapt. The grief doesn’t go; you just mould yourself around it.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“When you look back, you don’t see your own life in an orderly way. It’s more like snapshots – like in a photo album. And sometimes it’s hard to remember the bits in between, like what happened the moment before the photo was taken or just after.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“stepped”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances

“In Alison’s view, you had a choice: dwell on the negative or look for the positive. For instance, Roy wasn’t a bad person – he just found it difficult to express his emotions. He was easily frustrated, so his feelings came out in words and deeds that didn’t always feel like love. But he was always sorry afterwards.”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances

“Ikea. People walking in looked reasonably normal, but those leaving looked like ragged survivors of some catastrophe, wearing dazed expressions and clutching huge blue bags.”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances

“Because when Evelyn found such an object”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances

“It’s hard when secrets come out. But it’s a lot worse when they stay hidden.”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances

“printers.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“Remember, grief is the price we pay for love.”
― Jo Leevers, Tell Me How This Ends

“if you don’t think too hard, maybe walking out on your life isn’t that difficult at all.”
― Jo Leevers, The Last Time I Saw You

“It was odd, she thought, how in a small town, you could absorb a superficial knowledge of people, yet never dig any deeper.”
― Jo Leevers, The Museum of Second Chances