Shonagh Harris > Shonagh's Quotes

“I felt like a newly laid egg, all swishy and gloopy inside, and so fragile that the slightest pressure could break me.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“If I’m ever unsure as to the correct course of action, I’ll think, “What would a ferret do?” or, “How would a salamander respond to this situation?” Invariably, I find the right answer.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I pondered what else I should take for him. Flowers seemed wrong; they're a love token, after all. I looked in the fridge, and popped a packet of cheese slices into the bag. All men like cheese.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I had no idea how to respond, and opted for a smile, which serves me well on most occasions (not if it's something to do with death or illness, though -- I know that now.)”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“It wasn't that you could take them for granted, as such - heaven knows, nothing can be taken for granted in this life - it was simply that you would know, almost unthinkingly, that they'd be there if you needed them, no matter how bad things got.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I feel sorry for beautiful people. Beauty, from the moment you possess it, is already slipping away, ephemeral. That must be difficult.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.”
― Gail Honeyman

“I took one of my hands in the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person's hand holding mine. There have been times where I felt that I might die of loneliness.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“But maybe it's what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, it stands to reason that I'm going to get there. I've begun to think we sit far more than we're supposed to." He smiled. "Why else would we have feet?”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“But it never ceases to amaze me how difficult the things that are supposed to be instinctive really are.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He had felt safe with what he had confided. It had been the same with Queenie. You could say things in the car and know she had tucked them somewhere safe among her thoughts, and that she would not judge him for them, or hold it against him in years to come. He supposed that was what friendship was, and regretted all the years he had spent without it.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“They believed in him. They had looked at him in his yachting shoes, and listened to what he said, and they had made a decision in their hearts and minds to ignore the evidence and to imagine something bigger and something infinitely more beautiful than the obvious.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He knew he was going to reach Berwick, and that all he had to do was to place one foot in front of the other. The simplicity of it was joyful. If he kept going forward, he would of course arrive.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“As time passed and he found his rhythm, he began to feel more certain. England opened up beneath his feet, and the feeling of freedom, of pushing into the unknown, was so exhilarating he had to smile.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“Relationships are built in the silences. You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them—and that is what apartheid stole from us: time.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“People thought my mom was crazy. Ice rinks and drive-ins and suburbs, these things were izinto zabelungu -- the things of white people. So many people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own. Why teach a black child white things? Neighbors and relatives used to pester my mom: 'Why do this? Why show him the world when he's never going to leave the ghetto?'

'Because,' she would say, 'even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I've done enough.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“A dog is a great thing for a kid to have. It's like a bicycle but with emotions.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“My grandmother always told me that she loved my prayers. She believed my prayers were more powerful, because I prayed in English. Everyone knows that Jesus, who's white, speaks English. The Bible is in English. Yes, the Bible was not written in English, but the Bible came to South Africa in English so to us it's English. Which made my prayers the best prayers because English prayers get answered first. How do we know this? Look at white people. Clearly they're getting through to the right person. Add to that Matthew 19:14. "Suffer little children to come unto me," Jesus said, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." So if a child is praying in English? To White Jesus? That's a powerful combination right there.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“Just four or five hours later we begin to see a country whose beauty penetrates our bones. I say beauty I mean beauty. Oftentimes in America you could go stark mad from the ugliness of things. Grass that goes for a thousand miles and never a hill to break it. I ain't saying there ain't beauty on the plains when well there is. But you ain't long travelling on the plains when you begin to feel clear loco. You can rise up out of your saddle and sort of look down on yourself riding, it's as if the stern and relentless monotony makes you die, come back to life, and die again. Your brain is molten in its bowl of bones and you just seeing atrocious wonders everywhere. The mosquitoes have your hide for supper and you are one hallucinating lunatic then. But now in the far distance we see a land begin to be suggested as if maybe a man was out there painting with a huge brush.”
― Sebastian Barry, Days Without End

“A man’s memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can’t do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards.”
― Sebastian Barry, Days Without End

“Things that give you heart are rare enough, better note them in your head when you find them and not forget.”
― Sebastian Barry, Days Without End

“We're holding hands then like lovers who have just met or how we imagine lovers might be in the unknown realm where lovers act as lovers without concealment.”
― Sebastian Barry, Days Without End

“There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic