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

“Dicked by the dangling dong of destiny”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

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

“I think he got dicked by the dangling dong of destiny, that’s what I think.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“There will be those who disagree with me, of course. People who say romantic love trumps platonic female friendship. Or parental love. Or love of self. Those people are just giving away the fact that they’ve never experienced true platonic female friendship. The kind of friendship you’d do anything to preserve—fight, steal. Even kill. Here’s a little-spoken fact for you: 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. And the only reason I’m still alive is Daphne.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“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

“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 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

“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

“One of the (many) confronting things about being elderly is that to me, everyone looks like a kindergartener. There’s something sweet about it when dealing with a cashier or tradesperson, but disconcerting when it is your surgeon and they are about to remove your gallbladder.”
― 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

“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

“—I can talk my way out of anything. The key is to keep talking. Never stop. Just keep throwing words like spaghetti at a wall until they get tired and let you go.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“People tend to go with the pack, Mabel. They believe what other people tell them rather than thinking for themselves.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“I choose you. It’s hard to imagine a nicer thing to say to a person, especially when you’re not the sort of person people tend to choose.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“strikes me that, with all the cruelties in this world, there is still nothing quite as dangerous as kindness.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“buttnuggets.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

“In my experience, love has always been synonymous with terror.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

“there are two groups of people who are rarely, if ever, suspected of murder. These groups are elderly women and little girls.”
― Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel