Jenny Colgan > Quotes

“I have a head for business and a body for sin. Unfortunately, the sin appears to be gluttony.”
― Jenny Colgan, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can't fix anything. And your life might turn out full of regrets.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew - apart from, sometimes, music - to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“We'd even devised the Buffy scale of life relationships: you start off wanting Xander, spend your twenties going out with Spike and setttle down with giles.”
― jenny colgan

“I am of the old-fashioned conviction that reading is a pleasure to be carefully guarded at all times”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Dear ignoramuses,

Halloween is not 'a yankee holiday' celebrated only by gigantic toddlers wearing baseball caps back to front and spraying 'automobiles' with eggs. This is ignorance.

Halloween is an ancient druidic holiday, one the Celtic peoples have celebrated for millennia. It is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the souls of the departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap. What could be more thrilling and worthy of celebration than that? It is a time to celebrate sweet bounty, as the harvest is brought in. It is a time of excitement and pleasure for children before the dark sets in. We should all celebrate that.

Pinatas on the other hand are heathen monstrosities and have no place in a civilised society.”
― Jenny Colgan, Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams

“Some people buried their fears in food, she knew, and some in booze, and some in planning elaborate engagements and weddings and other life events that took up every spare moment of their time, in case unpleasant thoughts intruded. But for Nina, whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book. Books had been her solace when she was sad; her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down. Yet”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“Life was always easier, reflected Issy, when you were carrying a large Tupperware full of cakes. Everyone was happy to see you then.”
― Jenny Colgan, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

“The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“I think love is caramel. Sweet and fragant; always welcome. It is the gentle golden colour of a setting harvest sun; the warmth of a squeezed embrace; the easy melting of two souls into one and a taste that lingers even when everything else has melted away. Once tasted it is never forgotten.”
― Jenny Colgan, Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams

“Books had been her solace when she was sad, her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“This is what you British do not understand about the French. You think you must work, work, work, work and open on Sundays and make mothers and fathers with families slave in supermarkets at three o'clock in the morning and make people leave their homes and their churches and their children and go shopping on Sundays.'
'Their shops are open on Sundays?' said Benoît in surprise.
'Yes! They make people work on Sundays! And through lunchtimes! But for what? For rubbish from China? For cheap clothes sewed by poor women in Malaysia? For why? So you can go more often to KFC and get full of fried chicken? You would rather have six bars of bad chocolate than one bar of good chocolate. Why? Why are six bad things better than one good thing? I don't understand.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris

“Baking is...Life. So when you describe what you're making, you must describe life. Do you see? It's not just recipes..”
― Jenny Colgan, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

“Books were the best way Nina knew – apart from, sometimes, music – to breach the barrier; to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days. Now,”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Because life is like that, isn’t it? If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again. And some people don’t. Some people go through life not really deciding to do much, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also a decision.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“hiraeth (n): a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places in your past”
― Jenny Colgan, The Cafe by the Sea

“Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don't have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“It was a very odd concept - that you could become friends with someone simply by examining their bookshelves - but nevertheless, Zoe believed it fervently.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Shore

“once when this woman was going on and on about how she would never read on download, that there was nothing like a real book and – I promise I normally am never rude to people but she was being truly insufferable – I said, ‘Well, they’re really only for people who read a lot’ which was mean of me but quite satisfying also.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Shore

“I never understand,” he said, shaking his head, “why anyone would go to the trouble of making up new people in this world when there’s already billions of the buggers I don’t give a shit about.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“In short, she self-medicated with books.

(By the way, as the author of this novel, and one who has herself always self-medicated with books, I cannot rightfully attest or deny whether this is a better way of dealing with 'real life' than any other. In fact, as a reader (all writers are just readers one step to the side), I'm not actually sure I believe in this 'real life'. I know it is a terrible betrayal to say this, but come on, aren't books - whisper it - quite a lot better in real life? In books, baddies get blown up or chopped up or sent to prison. In real life, they're your boss or your ex. In books, you get to know what happened. In real life, sometimes you don't get to know what happened ever. They're not even sure they've found Amelia Earhart. So. Books are absolutely the thing in my opinion, or as the old saying goes: whatever gets you through the night (which I should say is also books. Books get you through the night).)”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Shore

“Anything that spreads books and brings about more books, I would say it is good. Good medicine, not bad.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“I want to go to the party!’
‘I said no.’
‘I’ve been totally good.’
‘You shot me with an arrow.”
― Jenny Colgan, Meet Me at the Cupcake Café

“Christmas, as a practicing Catholic child, was seen as a reward for lots and lots and lots of church.”
― Jenny Colgan

“They were probably reading on their tablets,” said Nina loyally. She loved her e-reader, too. “Yes, I know,” said the man. “But I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see what they were reading or ask them if it was good, or make a mental note to look for it later. It was as if suddenly, one day, all the books simply disappeared.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“It’s also a story too about how if you love books, well, then I always think you have a layer of protection against the world, which sounds strange, but that is what I truly believe.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Shore

“When you look at things the same way you've always done, nothing changes. When you change perspective, everything changes.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Shore

“Be silent, hide away and let your thoughts and longings rise and set in the deep places of your heart. Let dreams move silently as stars, in wonder more than you can tell. Let them fulfill you—and be still.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner