Carole Johnstone > Quotes

“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim.’ ” “She said you were funny.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“Ghosts are just unfinished business. Unspoken truths. Guilt hiding under rocks, inside rabbit holes. They don't need to follow you, because they are you.”
― Carole Johnstone, The Blackhouse

“If a member of this tribe did something wrong, got caught doing something wrong, or even just thought they’d done something—anything, you know, from telling a lie to committing a murder—this tribe, this entire tribe, would take them into the center of their village, and they would form this circle around them, so tight they couldn’t escape, couldn’t hide. And then they would tell that person everything that was good about them. Every good thing they’d ever done. Every good thing they’d ever been. Over and over. And they wouldn’t stop. Not until that person heard them. Believed them.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream for ever. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“I withdrew from you, because the truth was all I could see. It felt like a slow-spreading disease, one that I couldn't bear to pass on to you.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“Because believing hurts. No one has ever lied or hidden the truth from me better than I have.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“There was never a time when Mirrorland didn't feel real; when we couldn't feel the wind and rain and wonder of it, or smell the sea and smoke and sweat. But sometimes, Mirrorland felt very real, and those were the times when we were cleaver or cruel or afraid.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“All those unconscious fantasies you've created-embedded-are so much stronger than what they've repressed.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“Because it’s not sympathy I feel. Nor empathy. It’s anger. Deep-seated and too hot. How fucking unfair life is. How relentlessly merciless. And we’re just supposed to go on living anyway.”
― Carole Johnstone, The Blackhouse

“I was happy here. Mostly. And I’ve been so unhappy since. But I still know it’s true: you can never go back.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“Я пытался утопить свои печали, но эти гады отлично плавают”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“How fucking unfair life is. How relentlessly merciless. And we're just supposed to go on living anyway.”
― Carole Johnstone, The Blackhouse

“The caretakers kept talking to us about aging out as if we were a hundred and fifty instead of seventeen approaching eighteen. They also kept talking us through our options, enough that we knew we had very few.”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“На любом судне найдется свой поганец, а если его нет, то поганец – ты”
― Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland

“Aye, well.” Charlie clears his throat. “Sometimes, awful’s part of living.”
― Carole Johnstone, The Blackhouse