The Secret History of Audrey James Quotes

“Because all it took to bring someone down in this Germany was a question mark.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“It's hard to outrun your bad decisions. But you can certainly try.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“The blows had come in such quick succession, and nothing would ever be the same again. It was as though a permanent night had fallen, cloaking a path that was no longer visible.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“They lived in a world that was designed and run and ruined by men.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“She looks at her left hand, the diamond ring Adam gave her sitting atop her wedding band. Whatever power or magic or promises the rings once held have blown away like rotted leaves in the aftermath of everything that happened.
She's left London, left Adam. The Oakwood is her fresh start. It's time to let go.
Swallowing hard, Kate wiggles off the rings. The bands have left a divot in her finger, the lingering outline of a previous identity, like new skin cells knitting into a scar. She wonders if it will be visible forever.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“The only way avoidance will serve you is to exhaust you completely.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“But never let petty circumstance and disagreement separate you; life is too short to let pride get in the way of love.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“In my experience, a person will never do anything if they always wait until they're ready. We have to make ourselves uncomfortable, Kate, in order to move. Otherwise we get stuck, stagnating, until we lose the ability to move anywhere at all.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“She trailed off, angry at all of it. That women needed men for protection. That they lived in a world that was designed and run and ruined by men. That Ilse wanted a man instead of her. She was lightheaded now, but it made it easier to say what she must. "Love her like she's the best thing to ever happen to you. Because she will be. That is a certainty.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“When she was seventeen, not long before her maternal grandmother passed, her dad had taken a photo of her hand on top of her mother's and grandmother's, three layers of generations together, the skin progressively thinner, more mottled. Kate had always liked the photo, but wasn't old enough to fully appreciate that her time with her grandmother - and her parents - was limited. That the opportunities to ask about their lives, hear their wisdom, were withering by the day.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“I came up here, met Martin, and ran headlong into a courtship that was doomed from the start because I was desperate for companionship and stability and a fix for all that had gone wrong. For requited love. But I failed. I failed in moving on, and I failed in loving Martin as he deserved to be loved because I hated myself," she says. "And a person can't love through a shield of self-loathing. It simply doesn't work.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“No offence intended, my dear, but your generation seems particularly fixated on individual emotion. On processing everything, like you're an assembly line for feelings. A person could spend their life obsessing over the past. Seems rather exhausting and dramatic to me. In my day, we just got on with it. Kept on keeping on, as they say.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“She always likes to explore other people's book collections; it says so much about a person, the books they choose to read, and - perhaps even more revealing - the books they choose to keep. The ones they continuously hold on to, even after spring cleanings, moving houses, downsizing, divorce, and decluttering. The books they curated from their life's collection.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“Life deals out shit to some people and roses to others," Ian says. "There's no cheating it, no making sense of it. Maybe it's easy for me to say, not being in my brother's shoes, but I decided to live like the whole rest of my life was a gift. All of this," he says, pulling his hands from his pockets and opening his arms wide, as though embracing everything around him, "is a bonus I could have easily been denied. So I squeeze everything I can out of it. I try not to live with regrets. I try to just live.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“Tell people about them. Tell these stories. When we are the only ones left to remember someone, we have a responsibility to let them live on through our memories, our stories.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James

“The scars and the memories they hold are a part of her. Even if she tried, they wouldn't ever actually be erased. She would still see them beneath the surface.”
― Heather Marshall, The Secret History of Audrey James