Danielle Wood > Quotes

“Get on a bus full of old people and you’ll understand what I mean. It’s easy to pick the woman who’s spent her life indulging herself in moral indignation, tightening her lips against mothers who are too young, mothers who are too old, young men with dangerous-looking haircuts, and Winifred Martin going off with May Charleston’s husband, and at their age, honestly. Yes, you’ll be able to pick her in a trice, since she’ll be the one with the cat's arse where her mouth ought to be.”
― Danielle Wood, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls

“I looked inward at my heart. And indeed, there too, the criss-cross corsetry was slackened and gaping. I was all undone. Potentially, I could spill. Or tangle. And so I began to tug at my own heartstrings, pulling them up tight until there was just the right amount of tension at each criss and each cross. Then I bent down to my boots and laced them firmly too, first the left, then the right, finishing off on each side with a surgeon's shoelace knot.”
― Danielle Wood

“It’s said that sport is the civilised society’s substitute for war, and also that the games we play as children are designed to prepare us for the realities of adult life. Certainly it’s true that my brother thrived in the capitalist kindergarten of the Monopoly board, developing a set of ruthless strategies whose success is reflected in his bank balance even to this day. I, on the other hand, can still be undone by the kind of ridiculous sentimentality that would see me sacrifice anything, anything, in order to have the three matching red-headed cards of Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square and The Strand sitting tidily together on my side of the board.”
― Danielle Wood, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls

“Bringing a pot plant to the office, I believe, is a sign of quite serious commitment.”
― Danielle Wood, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls

“Is it necessary, do you think,’ he began, leaning in so close behind me that I could smell his breath, ‘for the purpose of visiting your grandmother’s childhood home, to dress like a kindergarten whore?”
― Danielle Wood, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls

“It was a well-known fact that Lorna was leaving in six months’ time, since Lorna had been leaving in six months’ time for close to twenty-five years.”
― Danielle Wood, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls