Piglet Quotes

“How to say that she had built a life that relied on the mirrors of others?”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“She was proud, in a way, that she could still smile as the delicious life she had been savouring turned maggoty in her mouth.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“What could she say? What sentence would pierce him while leaving her intact? She had built her life so carefully around him. To say something, to do something, to feel something, would be to self-destruct.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“There were some things that you could not tell your friends. She knew that truths, once spoken, had the power to strip her of the life she had so carefully built, so smugly shared.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Fathers, in Piglet’s experience, seemed to feel at a permanent liberty to express their opinions as if they were facts. Both her father and Richard had no embarrassment in voicing their beliefs without self-consciousness, while her mother and Cecelia were expert at ignoring their husband’s venting and any offence it caused.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“The consequences you would have to deal with later, but at least it was all gone for now. At least you had worried at the problem until you had eviscerated it into nothing.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“She only had herself to blame: speeding towards a disaster of her own making, propelled by a momentum she had whipped up.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Lost, she wondered what she was doing, and what, if anything, had ever given her a sense of satisfaction?”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Marriage is a commitment, but a lesser one than a mother has to her son.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Street food, she saw. Silky pasta, doughy pizza, steaming pho, obnoxiously tall burgers. Benches had been nestled behind the Royal Festival Hall, and they were filled with people eating personal feasts from paper plates: vast thalis; racks of sticky, black ribs; half lobsters with melting garlic butter and bread. Rows of diners craning to read menus wound between food trucks; queues intermingled, new arrivals negotiating for space. Piglet looked around, the National behind her. She had left the office early, she reasoned; she had time before finding a place to work. She edged forward, walking among the tables. The benches were full, some having to stand, juggling their fried chicken with their phones. There were young men who talked too loudly, laughed with their mouths full, and wore round, tortoiseshell glasses; glamorous women in their fifties and sixties, lunching and drinking; and au pairs with charges no older than twelve who ate salt beef bagels, cacio e pepe, and laksa.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“I thought you'd left me," he said.
"Monday is shopping night," she replied.
"Yeah, but I thought you left me. I was so scared," he rasped, face folding.
Two pints of milk, two tubs of Greek yoghurt, Parmesan, and smoked mackerel for the fridge.
"Well, I haven't," she said. "I went shopping."
Whole wheat spaghetti, two tins of chickpeas, two tins of tomatoes, and red lentils for the cupboard.
"Are you OK?" he asked.
Garlic, sweet potatoes, and red onions for the bottom drawer.
"Darling, please talk to me," he begged.
Bananas, apples, and Comte pears for the fruit bowl.
"Darling, please. I can't have you not talking to me."
A bar of 85 percent Green and Black's and Kettle Chips for the top cupboard.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“She picked up salted butter, thick Greek yoghurt, and cream.
The menu was not modest. Her basket was already heavy with Charlotte potatoes, fresh herbs, and a Duchy chicken.
It was too hot for a roast chicken, but Piglet had once heard Nigella say something about a house only being home once a chicken was in the oven. And anyway, there would be salads: one chopped and scattered with feta and sumac, another leafy with soft herbs. New potatoes, boiled and dotted with a bright salsa verde. Bread and two types of butter: confit and Parmesan and black pepper.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“She found that there was something embarrassing about seeing a man cry.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“People eat their dinner, just eat their dinner, and all the while their happiness is taking form, or their lives are falling apart. Anton Chekhov”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Piglet understood how it was, how it would always be: they, the family; her, the imposter—still, always.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Which author is a bigot? Which is known for sliding into the direct messages of teenagers on Twitter? “Problematic Bingo,” Toni called it, “where all the winners are still old white dudes.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Piglet caught her breath before she responded, struck abruptly by the balm of comforting another. This sheltered, irresistible position from which she could dispense advice. Secure in her objectivity, invulnerable in neutrality.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“In the space where she was both at once her parents’ daughter and Kit’s fiancée, she did not know how to be.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“In truth, she didn’t know if her family would love her food: repeating the word “sumac,” smacking their lips like the spice had been a lemon, an acidic taste left on their tongues. They would prefer pie, or lasagne, or casserole. Crumble, treacle tart, or bread-and-butter pudding.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Was this happiness: this rawness, this uncertainty, this promise of something new, something without him, something for herself?”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“The makeup artist wore the proof of her profession on her face.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“How do you tell people, when the invitations have been sent, the creme patissiere made, that the fullness of your life has bene a pretence; your pleasures, you realise, posture?”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“She was avoiding people, she knew, but she had started to feel irritated by the opinions of others, their needs, their insistence on sharing them all with her when it was her wedding in two days' time.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“The scant menu had done the food a disservice. As the dishes arrived, ferried from the kitchen by a team of waiters, she surveyed the food. She swallowed at the sight. It was a lot. There were katoris filled with daal, as thick and silky as rice pudding but yellowed with turmeric, finished with cream; a dark, oily, goat curry, chunks of meat blackened by a tandoor; neatly cubed paneer swathed in spinach; prawns, pink and black and glistening, scattered with coriander, sitting spikily in their dish; grilled chicken thighs, reddened with spice, scattered with chilli. Among the plates were little bowls of rice and folded naan, roti, and feather-layered paratha.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“A hob”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Pasta alla puttanesca”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“People eat their dinner, just eat their dinner, and all the while their happiness is taking form, or their lives are falling apart. —Anton Chekhov”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“Her flesh ripped with goosebumps as if a wind had whipped past her, high on a cliff, moving her body, leaving her teetering on the edge”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“And Piglet was running, speeding, from one life to another. She was in the margins of her decisions, inhabiting the space in between. It felt oddly lonely, she noticed—or spacious, maybe—when there was enough room to spread out.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet

“There were some things that you could not tell your friends. She knew that truths, once spoken, had the power to strip her of the life she had so carefully built, so smugly shared.”
― Lottie Hazell, Piglet