Mad Mabel Quotes

“A silent tear slips down my cheek. It strikes me that, with all the cruelties in this world, there is still nothing quite as dangerous as kindness.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Friends are like oxygen. If you’ve been blessed enough to have always been surrounded by friends, you might think I’m overplaying this. I don’t blame you. If you’d always been surrounded by air, you wouldn’t think to credit it for your very existence either. But I’ve spent much of my life gasping for breath, so I promise you, it’s true. Friends are like oxygen.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Because, as a few choice victims know, the only thing worse than bullying itself is the shame of speaking it aloud.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Dicked by the dangling dong of destiny”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“People have so little regard for female friendship that they can’t fathom a closeness such as we have without the romantic element. More fool them.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“All I can say is that once you've felt it, you'll realize that the only thing worse than the stabbing pain is the absence of it.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“one of the many glorious things about old age is that while aspirations of beauty may linger, they sit well below aspirations of health, comfort, and absence of pain.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“She did other things too—opened all the windows to let in the breeze, spread bright cloths across the table like she was laying out sunshine, turned on the wireless to let a little music move through the rooms. Looking back, I sometimes think this should be a service one could gift the grieving: the quiet, steadfast presence of someone who still believes there’s joy to be found—someone willing to hunt for it on your behalf.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“most kids took for granted—a life with a loving family, a friend or two, a supportive community. A life of people who noticed you were there … or, dare I say it, wanted you there?”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“but because people have so little regard for female friendship that they can’t fathom a closeness such as we have without the romantic element.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Punctuality, it seems, has joined common sense and properly made furniture on the growing list of things that no longer exist.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Unfortunately, with great expectation came the opportunity for great disappointment.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“As far as I'm concerned calling your child Sailor was a declaration that you had far too much time on your hands and anyone who attempted to name their child that should be issued the name Eustace or Darold by the government as punishment.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“And yet, as I open my mouth to talk, and images of that day flash before my eyes—I feel the air shift, as though the past has slipped into the room beside me.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“one could gift the grieving: the quiet, steadfast presence of someone who still believes there’s joy to be found—someone willing to hunt for it on your behalf.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“The child can call me Horace as long as she goes the fuck to sleep.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“This,’ he would say, ‘is my mum’s spanakopita. Best spanakopita in the world.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“I get it,’ Christos said after a while. ‘I’m no genius, and I like the smart girls too. I think it’s an evolutionary thing, for our survival. If we’re not smart, we have to bag a smart girl.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“afraid.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Of course I started a diary. As Ness suggested, I wrote about my thoughts and my feelings and my imaginations—whatever came to my mind. It felt strange. I’d been raised in a house where feelings were something you folded up and put away, like winter jumpers in the spring. But with a pencil in hand, I found I could make sense of my feelings. It was like cracking open a secret room in my own brain.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“out.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Friends are like oxygen. If you’ve been blessed enough to have always been surrounded by friends”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Cess was a fascinating contradiction to me. She didn’t work due to her family wealth, yet she was happy to perform duties like cooking and laundry, and believed strongly in rights for women. She didn’t suffer fools, but she could play the fool if it was advantageous for her in the long run. She didn’t believe in women conforming, but she put enormous effort into her appearance.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“The police are both men, which is disappointing.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“only thing worse than bullying itself is the shame of speaking it aloud.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Friends are like oxygen.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“I wipe them away before anyone can see. So this is the pain of loving, I think to myself. This is the pain of being loved.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“There’d been a time when I would have yearned for even one-hundredth of this beauty, but one of the many glorious things about old age is that while aspirations of beauty may linger, they sit well below aspirations of health, comfort, and absence of pain.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“She is, it turns out, one of those offensively good-natured people. It makes me wonder if she is, in fact, a nurse. It’s always bothered me, nurses and their insufferable cheer. Never mind that they spend their days doing the most difficult and important job on earth for a wage barely above the poverty line, they do it with a bloody smile on their faces. It’s hard to take, truly it is.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“Wills and Carlaw look at me. “Did you call your lawyer?” I can only imagine my facial expression. “I would have,” I say, my voice all posh-like. “But I used my one phone call to ring Beyoncé instead.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel