Sarah Goodwin > Quotes

“The way Nate seemed to pull at me without meaning to, like a dog bolting after an elusive prize, dragging its hapless owner behind it. Nate was a force, momentarily stilled. The tide that threatened my sandcastle life.”
― Sarah Goodwin, After The Fall

“It was too hard to push uphill against the tide of indifference.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“Then I noticed the top envelope had my name on it. My real name, not Judith Broch but Julie Pike.

My mother had long since stopped using that name for me. She’d lived under an assumed name herself. The only person who’d be writing to me with that name, at that address was him. Or more likely, someone working for him.

Raymond Wayfield; serial rapist and murderer. My father.

I stared at that letter for a long time. The light shifted in the flat as cars went by outside. Blue whirling lights and sirens went past, setting off a series of thumps and a baby’s cries in the flat above. Still I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and open that envelope. As if by doing so I’d be letting that man back into my life. Into my reality.

As if he’d ever left.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Butcher's Daughter

“The lower deck had its own glassed-in room, and at the rear, spot-lit from a dozen angles, was an honest to Jesus helicopter, white and gold to match the boat itself. Was that intentional or a happy accident? I rolled my eyes. Of course it was intentional. Who wouldn’t colour coordinate their helicopter to their yacht? What were we, savages?”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“He looked at me, and I looked at him – realising for the first time, that I was looking at a stranger.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Resort

“I made a tea and drank it looking out at the empty street. Well, empty except for two rats going through a capsized recycling bin across the way. Until a seagull bullied them away and started ripping into a black bag. The Bristolian equivalent of watching the deer emerge and sip morning dew. I”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Resort

“People assume that people they dislike are secretly revelling in their failures, and it’s not a huge leap to start thinking that they are causing you to fail.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“the watery light enabled me to see Olly at the end of the hall. His foot was still trapped and his body was floating, making it seem as if he was slowly turning in a pirouette.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“My recent weight gain bloated my face like a toad. Had I not been blinking I might have looked dead.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“At least once we were trying to get some sleep I wouldn’t have to worry about looking like I was having the best time of my life.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Island

“Intentional or not, they’d shaped and pruned me into something not quite right. Now they were gone, I’d never be able to talk to them about it. I’d missed my chance. All the things I could never say to them, could never ask, just bubbled away inside me, making me angrier and angrier.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“You see a glass of wine fall over and you’re like, that’s fifty pounds wasted. We see it and we’re like, fuck, now I need another glass of wine.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“Who wouldn’t colour coordinate their helicopter to their yacht? What were we, savages?”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“It still felt surreal, being back in the real world. A world with traffic noise, squirrels and people everywhere. I bought an ice-cream because I could and relished it all the way back to the bus stop.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“Fortunately I have learned that there is no justice, aside from what we make for ourselves. There is only survival, and the victor tells the story.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“This’ll just last a little longer. I’ll be OK for a little longer.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“And “happy”, what is that exactly? There’s contentment, safety, comfort. But happiness? I don’t think it’s real,”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“I looked at the slick rocks and realised that we weren’t any closer to being saved. That was followed by the sickening thought that there was no longer a ‘we’. There was just me. Alone.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. If I could have knocked them out of the air, I would have. Even if they felt like broken glass going down, I’d have swallowed them all. Every single letter. But it was too late. I’d said it.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Resort

“Some people were beyond logic, beyond reason. You could never win against them, only escape.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Butcher's Daughter

“I’d heard someone say once that ‘suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem’. I was willing to bet that person had not been trapped on an island with a murderer and no hope of escape.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“It was instinct, and instinct isn’t clever. It’s not reasoned or logical. It’s just what your body tells you to do to keep it safe. Sometimes survival comes at the cost of pain – to you or someone else.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“Zoe was laughing, not meanly, but like we were having fun together. I whipped up a large piece of bladder wrack and threw it at her, making her scream. I felt a stab of fear that she’d get pissed off, but she was grinning as she shrieked.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“For the first time I looked right at what we’d done, like staring at the sun ‘til you could see it even when you looked away. I knew I’d never stop seeing it then, that I would always think of her.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Night Fires in the Distance

“I had traded time with the two people I loved most for a job I hated and people who barely knew me.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“there was something about him that made me feel like he wasn’t really listening when anyone else talked.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“Though, if I had known then what would follow, the escalation that was to come, I might not have slept at all.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“Survive, Hannah. Just keep surviving.”
― Sarah Goodwin, The Yacht

“It wasn’t that they were bad people, it was just exhausting trying to seem normal to them.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded

“dropped my professional voice. ‘I am calm. I’m just disagreeing with you.”
― Sarah Goodwin, Stranded