The Past Quotes

“Part of the oddity of marriage, she thought, was in how unwise it was to attend too intently to the other person. In order for love to survive, you had to close yourself off to a certain extent.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past

“she scrubbed floors on her knees with a contemptuous hissing noise which must have come from her brush, though it seemed to come out of herself.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past

“What use was her grown-up knowledge--acquired through such initiations, at such risk--in this world of infants, who had to be kept safe?”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past

“She knew from her own experience what a great labour it was, binding up again all the mess of self, which in your extremity you had unbound.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past

“I’d rather be romantic than jaded. At least I’ve had a love life. Even if the romance does seem unreal sometimes, in retrospect. All that hard work of falling into love and falling out of it again. None of it leaves any trace, not visibly.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past

“In order for love to survive, you had to close yourself off to a certain extent.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past

“she had felt weightless and carefree, as if she could go back to a bright, hard, selfish time when she had only herself to think about.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Past