The Bookshop on the Corner Quotes

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can't fix anything. And your life might turn out full of regrets.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew - apart from, sometimes, music - to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“I am of the old-fashioned conviction that reading is a pleasure to be carefully guarded at all times”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Some people buried their fears in food, she knew, and some in booze, and some in planning elaborate engagements and weddings and other life events that took up every spare moment of their time, in case unpleasant thoughts intruded. But for Nina, whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book. Books had been her solace when she was sad; her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down. Yet”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Books had been her solace when she was sad, her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days. Now,”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Books were the best way Nina knew – apart from, sometimes, music – to breach the barrier; to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“Because life is like that, isn’t it? If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again. And some people don’t. Some people go through life not really deciding to do much, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also a decision.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don't have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“I never understand,” he said, shaking his head, “why anyone would go to the trouble of making up new people in this world when there’s already billions of the buggers I don’t give a shit about.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Anything that spreads books and brings about more books, I would say it is good. Good medicine, not bad.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“They were probably reading on their tablets,” said Nina loyally. She loved her e-reader, too. “Yes, I know,” said the man. “But I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see what they were reading or ask them if it was good, or make a mental note to look for it later. It was as if suddenly, one day, all the books simply disappeared.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Be silent, hide away and let your thoughts and longings rise and set in the deep places of your heart. Let dreams move silently as stars, in wonder more than you can tell. Let them fulfill you—and be still.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“It was horribly difficult, she reflected, to have finally found the place you thought of as home, only to realize you were going to have to move on again.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“All the real blokes I know are obsessed with cars and have started doing cycling at the weekend and being really, really boring about it and banging on about their Fitbits and growing stupid beards and talking about being on Tinder. That's what all the 'real men' are like these days!”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happy Ever After

“Once upon a time when I was young, I had a lovely boyfriend who bought me a hammock and hooked it up on my tiny and highly perilous roof terrace, where I spent many happy hours just rocking and reading, eating Quavers and reflecting on my lovely handsome boyfriend. Then, I married him and we had a bunch of children and a dog and moved somewhere where it rains all the time, and I think the hammock is in storage. This, my friends, is apparently what's known as 'happily ever after'.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“If you weren’t an extrovert, if you weren’t shoving yourself out into the open all the time, posting selfies everywhere, demanding attention, talking constantly, people just gazed right past you. You got overlooked.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Book in bath. Paperbacks are ideal, obviously, and the worst that can happen is you have to dry it out on the radiator (all my children’s handed-down Harry Potters are utterly warped), but I read a lot on my e-reader and I will let you into a secret: I turn the pages with my nose. You may not have been blessed with a magnificent Scots-Italian Peter Capaldi nose like me, but with a bit of practice you should soon find it’s perfectly possible to keep one of your hands in the water and turn the pages at the same time.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“In front of the fire If you haven’t got a fire, a candle will do. The one thing I really look forward to as the nights draw in is a big cozy fire and a good book—the longer the better. I love a really, really long novel, a large cup of tea, or glass of wine depending on how close to the weekend we are (or how much I am in the mood to stretch the definition of what constitutes the weekend), and a bit of peace and quiet. A dog helps, too. Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“For most of her life, the outdoors had simply been something to shelter from whilst she got on with her reading.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Little Shop of Happily Ever

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. VOLTAIRE”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“The Heart Shattered Glass was a courageous scream from the abyss from an abandoned woman, written in four days from the side of a precipice down which she was hurling all her worldly goods, one at a time, meditating on their meaning. It had taken the world by storm with its candor and wit. The fact that the author had subsequently fallen madly in love with and married the book’s publicist had only prolonged its popularity, but it was truly a book that deserved its worldwide fame. It was . . . She got it exactly. Exactly what it feels like. Nina looked at the tightly buttoned-up woman she had struggled to connect with and marveled, not for the first time, at the astonishing amount of seething emotion that could exist beneath the most restrained exterior. To look at Lesley you would think she was just a middle-aged shopkeeper quietly going about her business. The fact that she completely and utterly empathized with an American woman who had let her own blood drip down a mountainside in anguish, who had changed sexuality and howled at the moon with a wolf pack, just went to show. There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew—apart from, sometimes, music—to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things. It would be lovely, wouldn’t it, whenever you’re going through something difficult, if someone could just tap you on the shoulder and say, “Don’t worry, it’s completely worth it. It seems like absolutely horrible crap now, but I promise it will all come good in the end,” and you could say, “Thank you, Fairy Godmother.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“that seasons would come and go with the clouds passing across the sky, but also that everything would come around again and find itself much as it had been generations ago, in the farms and the rivers and the towering cliffs and the gentle running valleys, where life did not move so fast that there wasn’t time to settle down with a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread and a book.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“I just . . . I built him up in my mind so much.” “Too much reading.” “In my head, he was this kind of lost romantic hero.” “He can’t get lost, he drives a train.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“A nice manner and a level head would surely get you much further. But that didn't cut much with the big cheeses, who liked flakey mission statements and loud, confident remarks.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner

“Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.”
― Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Corner