C.L. Taylor > Quotes

“We all have secrets. Most are guilty, a few are wretched and some are too precious to share.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Missing

“Good. I don’t like people.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“Hate is like a poison you make for your enemy that you end up swallowing yourself. Hating him gives him too much power, too much control over the way I live my life.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Fear

“Those who have a mother, treasure her with care, for you never know how much you love her until she is not there.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“God bless? I don't need God's help. I don't need the police's help either. I can find you all by myself, Jo. I'm good with people. I tell them what they want to hear...”
― C.L. Taylor, The Escape

“We are lost in death but surrounded by life.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Island

“Show me a teenager that opens up to adults and I’ll introduce you to Santa,”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“Don’t believe me, but I think there’s something dodgy about him, and this story about his psycho ex fiancée seems a little bit too neat to me. He’ll”
― C.L. Taylor, Strangers

“No. No, Kate’s the only one who comes in”
― C.L. Taylor, Her Last Holiday

“He has to lie there and take it because, apparently, he’s supposed to be grateful that he’s alive. Grateful? Another tear escapes and winds its way into his hairline. He’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He’s never going to walk or run or cycle or ski ever again.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“air. There are days at work when I feel I can’t breathe, and not just because of the pollution. The air’s thinner at the top of the”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“compare family tree’ icon, the link refreshed,”
― C.L. Taylor, Her Last Holiday

“He’s thought about her, obviously; you don’t spend nearly two years with someone and then forget all about them the moment they walk out of the door,”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“If cancer were a person he’d have beaten the shit out of it and smashed its face to a pulp.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“What I want to do is tell Mum how much she means to me and how I wish I could take away the terrible disease that, day by day, is stealing another part of her away from me.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“When someone continually chips away at you there comes a point when they’re not just taking chunks out of your self-esteem, they’re destroying you bit by bit.”
― C.L. Taylor, Her Last Holiday

“SE1”
― C.L. Taylor, The Guilty Couple

“Strong would have been walking straight out of the World Headquarters club in Camden three years, two hundred and seventy days earlier when he laughingly called me a slut. Strong would have been refusing to ever see him again the night he refused to sleep in my bed because other men had been there first. Strong would have been reporting him to the police the night he raped me. Strong would have been stopping him from doing the same to another woman ever again.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“Fifteen years fall away in an instant and I am twenty-eight again, cradling baby Charlotte to my shoulder, her slumbering face pressed into the nook of my neck, her tiny heart out-beating mine, even in sleep. Back then it was so much easier to keep her safe.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“What would it be like, he wondered, to be a dog; to find joy in base behaviours – food, play, affection – and not overload your brain thinking about the future, death, the nature of an infinite universe, global warming, war and disease.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“As he’d walked to the tube afterwards he couldn’t help but feel relieved that Anna was no longer his responsibility. And guilty for feeling that way.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“Is it worth it, Sue? Is it worth being criticized, degraded and judged just for a few happy moments? Is it worth walking on eggshells, constantly wondering when he’s going to have a go at you next?”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“How many times can you cry wolf before the men in white coats come out with a nice white coat of your own to wear?”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“Coma. There’s something innocuous about the word, soothing almost in the way it conjures up the image of a dreamless sleep. Only Charlotte doesn’t look as though she’s sleeping to me. There’s no soft heaviness to her closed eyelids. No curled fist pressed up against her temple. No warm breath escaping from her slightly parted lips. There is nothing peaceful at all about the way her body lies, prostrate, on the duvet-less bed, a clear tracheostomy tube snaking its way out of her neck, her chest polka-dotted with multicoloured electrodes. The heart monitor in the corner of the room bleep-bleep-bleeps, marking the passage of time like a medical metronome and I close my eyes.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“Because I love France. But I hate the people.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Fear

“You never feel heartache as keenly as you do when you’re young. You think it’ll destroy you and that you will never love, or be loved, again.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“Guilt is such a furtive emotion. It lurks in the shadows of the mind, waiting for the chance to steal the limelight from happiness, contentment and peace, growing ever more powerful until it pushes them completely offstage.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“What is it like not to feel anxious? To feel secure instead of scared? It’s been so long I can barely remember.”
― C.L. Taylor, The Accident

“Anna,’ her face softens, ‘you had a hell of a day yesterday with … with what happened to David. We want you to take it easy today. I know you’re in charge and we’re the guests but we’re all human. You need time to grieve. And sleep.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep

“No. It doesn't hurt there. It hurts here, in here, inside my head.”
― C.L. Taylor, Sleep