In the Light of What We See Quotes

“It’s much easier to be the good twin if you’re also the dead one. Ask any saint.”
― Sarah Painter, In the Light of What We See

“Grace wasn’t so sure. She had become accustomed to the photograph, of course, seeing it every day, but she didn’t envy Nancy Beaton. The girl looked sad, Grace thought, and all of that shining material bunched behind her looked heavy, as if it were weighing her down. She didn’t look like a shooting star about to streak across a dark sky, she looked anchored to the earth. Trapped. Like a butterfly in a jar.”
― Sarah Painter, In the Light of What We See

“Maybe it’s the coma, but I’m genuinely happy to be here.’ ‘You don’t have to do that, you know.’ ‘Do what?’ ‘Assume that everything is different now. You’re still the same person you always were, you’ve just got some gaps to fill in. You mustn’t think that you’re starting all over again.’ ‘Is”
― Sarah Painter, In the Light of What We See

“I watched her leave with a curious mixture of relief and terror. I was alone again. Fear clutched at my chest and I wanted to call her back. I wondered if it would be different if my mother were alive. I wondered if she would be by my side, stroking my forehead, and whether I’d feel pure comfort, rather than this strange clawing mix of emotions. I knew my mother through stories, photographs and her brightly coloured dreamcatchers. I’d always thought that she would understand me, that she’d be warm and open, and that I would have grown up to be an entirely different person had she been around.”
― Sarah Painter, In the Light of What We See

“I half expected Stephen to turn the car around yet again, drive me to the police station and force me to make a statement. Of course, then I remembered – he wasn’t Mark. Or Pat. Or even Ger. He had never done anything except exactly what I’d asked of him. He’d never pushed. Never forced. He was the kind of man I’d always dismissed as weak. Certainly as ‘too nice’ for me. But now, suffused with gratitude at the sight of my building, and the quiet calm of Stephen’s presence, I realised I’d been an idiot. More of an idiot than I had ever previously realised.”
― Sarah Painter, In the Light of What We See