Ruth Mancini > Quotes

“It was as if we were having two different conversations. Which wasn’t that surprising after all, as we were clearly having two entirely different experiences of breaking up. His was soft, cushioned; Jude and his friends had broken his fall. Mine was cold, empty and bereft. I was freefalling in space and time, with nobody standing by to stop me hurtling headlong into obscurity.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“There it was again: “Came in to see us”, as if it were an enjoyable little day trip that lots of people made, just because it was such a nice place to be.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“It's a strange kind of irony. The things that affect us most are the things we can't remember" (from Swimming Upstream).”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“People often ask me where I get my ideas from. The answer is that I’m a criminal defence lawyer as well as a writer and so there is a wealth of material at my fingertips. As I head off to court or the police station, I know that whatever the offence or the facts of the case I’m about to deal with there will be something that makes it different from the last. No two days are the same, that’s for sure.”
― Ruth Mancini

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”   —ATTRIBUTED TO BOB MARLEY”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Home

“You don't love me, not really. That's just something you say to keep me loving you.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“Who's to say whose pain is greater, or lesser than anyone else's? We are all unique beings and pain... we must try to empathise; but never measure.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“We’re humans; we’re all flawed.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Home

“know your own truths.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Upstream

“Acting innocent whilst trying to appear guilty is not as straightforward as it seems.”
― Ruth Mancini, The Woman on the Ledge

“It’s a beautiful sunlit Monday in August, the kind of day that would make your heart sing, your spirit rise. It’s lunchtime, and I’m standing in an absent-minded fog by the German sausage stall in Borough Market, under London Bridge. I can hear the trains rumbling overhead, and it reminds me of that scene from The Godfather, the one where Michael Corleone is about to assassinate his father’s rival mafia boss. Trains always seem to rumble overhead in movies when something ominous is about to happen, and it’s kind of spooky, not to mention fitting, because things couldn’t get much more ominous for me, right now.”
― Ruth Mancini, Swimming Home

“Why do some people just breeze through life, getting everything? Why do some people have to fight so hard just to stay sane? Just to stay alive?”
― Ruth Mancini, The Woman on the Ledge