Silence is Goldfish Quotes

“You might not be a lion, Tess. That's fine. Neither am I. But we're still cats, aren't we? Just because we don't roar, doesn't mean we have to be silent.”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“{Numbers are more my thing}. Life is confusing and the only place where two plus two ever equals four is in a Maths lesson. Even when things look complicated, actually they're pretty straightforward.' - ppg 38”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“That is love, making endless tea for someone who never drinks it, just in case this is the morning they might actually want a sip.' -ppg 4”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“They think it's what we need to hear, but it's the opposite. Inviting glamorous people to school, asking them to parade their glamorous lives onstage, getting them to inspire us with their message that anything is possible if only we believe. Dream. Reach for the stars. Well, no thanks. That's not for me. I'm not going to get there, and neither are most people that I know, and that's fine by me. It is. It really is. When did it stop being fine for everyone else? The normal stuff. Sunday dinners and, I don't know , taking a walk in the park and listening to music and working in an ordinary job for an ordinary wage that will allow you to maybe go on holiday once a year, and really look forward to it too because you're are not a greedy bastard wanting more, more, more all the time. That's who should be doing a talk at school. Seriously. Show me someone happy with a life like that, because it's enough. It should be enough. All that other stuff is meaningless.”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“At primary school when people tried to find friends, I tried to find space that my imagination could fill with whatever it wanted, nearly always butterflies because to me they were perfection, like real-life fairies with prettier wings. At break time I turned myself into them, not just one butterfly but hundreds of them, my arms a kaleidoscope of colors as I danced across the wet grass while my class played tag, chasing around each other around the blacktop. I didn't understand it, like wasn't it too crowded I asked them all the time in my head. Don't you worry cherub, the lunch monitor said when she caught me watching the other children in confusion. You're Pluto. Happiest away from the heat of the action. She smiled a wrinkly smile. Nothing wrong with that.”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“My heart is your heart," she whispers, and wow that takes my breath away, this line from my childhood that she always used to say...' - ppg 248+249”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“You don't have to wear a wedding ring to be a husband. And you don't have to be a husband to be someone's partner." - Mr Goldfish; ppg 246”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“Why are you friends with those girls anyway?" His face glows orange in the flame of his lighter. "Same reason I am, I suppose." He laughs sardonically. "They're fit, aren't they? Nice to look at? Popular?" He inhales deeply then blows smoke at the sky. "Superficial bullshit. None of us is immune. It's pervasive, the sickness at the heart of our society." He stoops over the bin, and for a second I think he might vomit, but then he reappears with something held delicately between his thumb and forefinger. It's a brown half-eaten apple that he spins like a globe. "There is something rotten at the core of our world. Something broken at the heart of everything, on every level. Think about it. The planet - broken. Society- broken." Henry points at the apple, roughly where the United Kingdom might be. "And us---" he glances at me "---the individuals, two little specks of nothing in all this madness..."
"Broken?" Mr Goldfish guesses, filling the long, strange silence.
"Totally and utterly screwed."
- ppg 237+238”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“Call it blind faith"
"Or blissful ignorance."
- ppg 221”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“Now we've gone days and days without talking. It doesn't even seem odd anymore, and that's the saddest thing of all' - ppg 172”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“At least the tree knows where it stands. It had a sense of place. It's fixed. Attached. And I am lost.
I belong to nothing, and no one, but that's all going to change.' - ppg 165”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“I like that attitude. Got to make your own opportunities if there aren't any coming your way." - Uncle Paul; ppg 161”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“It's terrifying, how much things have changed in the space of a few days. A week ago I was an ordinary girl with parents that I loved, a home where I belonged and a friend who I adored. But I was blooming under false pretences, and it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart.
Now I'm alone' - ppg 125+126”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“Take the road less travelled sometimes. And other times stick to the path that will lead you to success and a decent career." - Jack to Tess; ppg 117”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“Sometimes school feels like a rat race. All the lessons. The homework. It feels like a treadmill that I want to get off, because, well, there is more to life." - Tess; ppg 116”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“But my parents let me drift. My head was too easily turned by what else was out there. I always knew I wanted something bigger, something better, but I should have knuckled down. My parents should have made me knuckle down. They were too lenient." - Jack to Tessa about his education; ppg 116”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“It's okay to be nervous. It's all part part of it. It's not a very pleasant feeling, but it won't kill you. You're tougher than you think." - Mr Darling; ppg 77”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“That's how it feels, like my world is surrounded by lies and made up of fibs and built on mistruths. I need facts - facts that can't be denied, written down in black and white in an official file with an index where I can look up the secrets of myself and find the answers.' -ppg 71+72”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“I am not going to join them. I stand alone and it feels good, like I'm remaining true to myself at long last. I am a cloud and I am thunder and I am big and black and angry, lurking on the horizon.' - ppg 74”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“It's about the importance of doing things differently, getting off the beaten track. It isn't easy, but I thrive on it. The unpredictability. The unexpected twists and turns. The chance to be great, to do something great, to challenge yourself and prove what I can do do in front of an audience. Silence the doubters." - Jack; ppg 72”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“But lions aren't tame, Jack used to say. They're dangerous, Tess. They roar. But you wouldn't listen. You saw a car. Jack saw the King of the Jungle. But that's folk for you. It wouldn't do for us all to be identical, would it?" - Gran to Tess; ppg 67”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“We grin at each other, and isn't it amazing, the fact that my mood affects her mood, and her mood affects my mood because we are symbiotic creatures.' - ppg 55”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“I am not going to make small talk with the enemy, let's be clear about that.' - ppg 31”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“I am big and I am strong and I am powerful- a girl of Everest proportions who won't easily be conquered.' - ppg 26”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“My real dad would never be this rude, I just know it. Even if he was angry, he would hold up his hand to apologise. I would hold up my hand to apologise, and he would hold up his hand even higher to take more of the blame, but I would hold up my hand highest of all to show that it was actually my fault. And with our fingers almost scraping the sky we would smile identical smiles then he would gasp, "It's you!" "Yes!" I would reply, and then we would embrace...' - ppg 10”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish

“A leopard can't change its spots and a dog can't change its temperament and a planet can't change its position in the universe.' - ppg 9”
― Annabel Pitcher, Silence is Goldfish