The Business Quotes

“It was a bastard, life. It had the knack of throwing you a curve every now and then to keep you interested. To give you a reason to keep going. Then, just as you thought you had cracked it, you took delivery of a blow that was so severe you were amazed at how you could ever have survived it. But somehow you did, and somehow you carried on.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“She wanted to warn them; they would waste their youth because they did not realise just how fleeting it was, and because most people did.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910, Anna Karenina A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit. François Rabelais, 1494-1553”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Your family is either the best thing that ever happened to you or it’s the worst thing that ever happened to you.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Addicts’ children should be removed from their influence, and placed as far away from the offender as was humanly possible.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“They didn’t mean that the sins a parent might commit would be visited on their offspring. The words actually meant that the mistakes a parent made while they were bringing up their children would be visited on the second, the third, even the fourth generation.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Show me the company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Why did people feel like this nowadays? Why were they so scared of chastising their kids, of making them listen to reason, explaining that what they were doing was wrong? Mary had not felt for a long time that she was in a position to offer her advice and she wondered when the children, the youngest members of the family, had suddenly acquired so much power that they were more or less laws unto themselves.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Her old dad used to say God is good, and he was good, but he was also very busy. He just needed a bit of help now and again.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Blessed are they that mourn: For they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“A truth that’s told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent. William Blake, 1757-1827, ‘Auguries of Innocence’ Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Proverbs 31:10”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Catholic guilt was the most destructive sort of guilt because the person that it concerned had no real concept of it. They didn’t even realise that it existed. Catholic guilt was something that grew alongside the person, alongside their personality and, in many ways, it did them some good. They felt the need to help the less fortunate, and they felt the urge to make their children better than they were.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Imelda believed in God because she felt that there had to be something else, something after all this, and also because anyone who was still being worshipped and adored after all that time had to have something going for them.”
― Martina Cole, The Business

“Always fighting, arguing, and mouthing off to teachers and other pupils alike. But it was never her fault, it was always someone else’s fault.”
― Martina Cole, The Business