Libby Page > Quotes

“The right book in the hands of the right person at exactly the right moment can change their life forever.”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“I am the person I am because of the books I have read.”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“When Kate was younger, stories were her friends when she found people challenging. She searched them out, hiding among them in the library and tucking herself into their pages. She folded herself into the shape of Hermione Granger or George from The Famous Five or Catherine Moreland from Northanger Abbey and tried to be them for a day. When she started secondary school her friends were the characters she met in the pages of her books. They sat with her in the library as she snuck mouthfuls of sandwich behind books so the librarian wouldn't see. (The librarian always saw, but pretended not to.)”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“But isn't that one of the great things about fiction?" he says. "It's an escape. Somewhere to go when you don't want to be where you are.”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“Sometimes hope can be the most painful thing.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“Maybe I was incredibly naive, but I wanted all of him, always. That was the only way I knew how to love him.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“When you're my age you'll understand,' she says. 'You begin to miss yourself.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“Tilly always thought of bookshops as a gathering place: all these books lined up neatly on the shelves like potential friends she just hasn't met yet.”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“Love is love like a tree is a tree. It can be a sapling or a hundred years old oak, but it still has a rout, lifetime and is left on mercy and disfavor of the seasons”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“She took the loneliness out of being alone.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“Reading has brought me a sense of escape through some of the hardest times in my life”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“but I never really felt comfortable leaving Molly alone with them even if I couldn’t have told you in words exactly why – it was more a lingering sense of unease, a feeling of wanting to hold my daughter tightly to me whenever we were around them. But despite”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“It’s a city I’ve lived in for years, but a place where I’ve never made a network of friends or found a sense of really belonging. I can see now that it’s my own fault – I built walls around myself in an attempt to protect myself and my daughter. Maybe those walls kept some pain out but they also shut out joy. This is the place and the life I chose, but this summer has shown me how small my life here has been. How small my entire life has become.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“It was rare that she got dressed up and went out, but each time a dinner party or the Christmas dinner with the other library staff came round she would stand in front of the mirror asking George to tell her if the dress was too short or too long, whether her makeup was okay, and if her hair looked fussy or too plain. He always smiled and told her she looked beautiful but she didn't believe him. She would believe him now - she was beautiful. She hopes Kate realizes it before she is eighty-seven.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“She was close to tears and I felt that old guilt and sadness rip through me – that I haven’t been able to give my daughter more. So many times, I’ve pictured a different kind of life for her. A life full of people: grandparents, cousins, siblings maybe, a father.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“Up until now Tilly has thought of her grief as a darkness, but she loves the idea of it being a light instead--a light that could shine and be spotted by other people who have experienced something similar.”
― Libby Page

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“That my parents were not incapable of love, I was just unlovable.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“She nods and I realise how refreshing it is to speak to this woman who grew up with my husband. She may not have seen him in years but she knows him in a way that perhaps no one else does. That’s just the way with siblings. They are with you throughout those pivotal moments that shape you into the person you will eventually become. I don’t think that thread can ever really be broken, not completely.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“Maybe it's only about one thing, but even that is something. At that moment the darkness, although still lurking from background, withdraws.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“...Mona feels isolated, the weight of her worries, thoughts, and anxieties hers and hers alone to carry. She thinks suddenly that this is probably why we need friends -- because however self-reliant and composed we may seem, none of us are quite strong enough to get through life shouldering these weights on our own.”
― Libby Page, The 24-Hour Café

“Never be sorry,’ she says, a storm in her eyes. ‘Never be sorry for feeling. Never be sorry for falling in love.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“In a large townhouse, a family is spread out across its rooms, each living in their own state but under one flag”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“No one would think you aren’t happy for her,” Alfie says softly. “But it’s OK to feel happy and sad at the same time. Very few moments involve just one emotion. That’s life”
― Libby Page, This Book Made Me Think of You

“understand,’ she says through her tears. ‘After everything you went through, of course you wanted to leave. But I just don’t understand why you didn’t keep in touch. We were best friends. For ages I wondered what I’d done wrong. I thought I didn’t matter to you.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“Farleigh-”
― Libby Page, The Lifeline

“My father had probably got himself into no fit state to leave the house and my mother would never have come on her own. I remember how disappointed I felt that they hadn’t been there, if not for me then for my brother, who was still small for his age and who shook when he collected his own prize from Mrs Brown, for science.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“But he only had eleven chest-hairs’ worth of life inside him, and he knew that wasn’t enough to help her.”
― Libby Page, The Lido

“Mallachy has given me so many unexpected wonderful moments over the past few weeks, moments when I’ve forgotten everything else and just let myself sink into happiness. But perhaps most of all, he gave me this.”
― Libby Page, The Island Home

“She can't see the deep end but knows that if she keeps kicking she will eventually reach it.”
― Libby Page, The Lido