Light Through the Vines Quotes

“We always know the first time we do anything, but we don’t often know when it’s our last time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”
― Fiona Valpy, Light Through the Vines

“PRAISE FOR FIONA VALPY ‘Fiona Valpy has an exquisite talent for creating characters so rounded and delightful that they almost feel like family, and this makes what happens to them feel very personal.’ —Louise Douglas, bestselling author of The House by the Sea”
― Fiona Valpy, Light Through the Vines

“Ed is Director of Sponsorship for an events company. When you come down to it, this means he sells advertising. The job mainly involves wining and dining contacts made through the Old Boy networks of the public schools of southern England and persuading them, in the most gentlemanly manner, to part with large dollops of money to have their companies’ names displayed at polo matches, rugby fixtures and regattas. Apparently, at the moment things aren’t going too well, and it has been proving, Ed admits over his bresaola and rocket salad, to be a bit of a bore of late”
― Fiona Valpy, Light Through the Vines

“Despite my exhaustion at the end of such a long day, for the first time in a very, very long while I feel at peace. Now that I’m finally here in France, it feels as if I’ve been able to put down a heavy load that I’ve been carrying. The sorrow of loss, the pain of betrayal and the terror of an uncertain future are all still there, but they seem to recede a little in these new surroundings. And despite the fact that I’m so alone here, somehow I don’t feel as lonely and abandoned as I did back in England. Perhaps I’m going to enjoy rural life”
― Fiona Valpy, Light Through the Vines

“into”
― Fiona Valpy, Light Through the Vines

“Under”
― Fiona Valpy, Light Through the Vines

“As every insomniac knows, there’s a kind of madness that comes with the night. The connections in the brain, which in the light of day allow it to function quite rationally, somehow become scrambled. The normally unthinkable becomes perfectly possible, if not probable. The doubts and fears, banished in daylight to dark corners, come creeping out and push any sensible thoughts away into some unreachable chasm.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“They are the only bird to sing through the night, Gina. And they only sing while their babies are in the nest. Once they fledge, the parent is silent again. But it’s as if, while their children are with them, they can’t help but express the joy in their overflowing hearts.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“And I’ve seen enough of life and death to know that, in the end, love is all that we have.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“Don’t let what you don’t know eat away at you. Life’s too short for that. Being able to let go is as important as it is difficult to do.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“But the most annoying thing about people who are dead is that you can’t answer them back.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“Sorry, but four o’clock in the morning really is the loneliest of hours.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“And anyway, let he or she who is entirely without an Abba number tucked away somewhere in their collection throw the first stone.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“Meat Loaf, Cher and Bonny Tyler rub shoulders with Kirsty MacColl, The Bangles and Dixie Chicks. Bryan Adams and Enrique Iglesias compete with Take That and Boyzone for my attention.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“Perhaps that’s what ghosts are, the essence of lives lived out that have become absorbed into the stonework and then radiate gently back out”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“The days were bad enough, but I particularly dreaded the nights, contemplating each one with trepidation as it stretched before me, a dark desert to be crossed alone, knowing that in the shadows my anxious thoughts lurked, waiting to ambush me and harry me, nipping at my heels like a pack of wild dogs. Some evenings I would drift asleep in front of the television before dragging myself groggily into bed an hour or so later, only to lie there wider awake than ever the minute my head hit the pillow. Sometimes, relieved that another restless night was over, I would fall into a deep sleep just as dawn broke, floundering in a quicksand of troubled dreams which relinquished their grip on my mind only reluctantly when I woke, leaving me queasy and emotionally drained.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“moment. You taught me that rhyme. How does it go? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy. Five’s for silver, six for gold... And”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love

“Don’t let what you don’t know eat away at you. Life’s too short for that. Being able to let go is as important as it is difficult to do. So my advice to you is to let this whole affair rest now. Try to get on with your life, and try to remember them both with love. After all, the one thing you do know is that they both loved you very, very much indeed. And I’ve seen enough of life and death to know that, in the end, love is all that we have.”
― Fiona Valpy, The French for Love