The Olive Tree Quotes

“That there are all kinds of love, and it arrives in different shapes and forms. It can be earned, but not paid for. It can be given, but never bought. And once it’s truly there, it holds fast. This love thing.”
― Lucinda Riley, The Olive Tree

“And then I kiss her, and feel her respond with equal fervour. And as I hear the music rising to a crescendo above us, I know for certain that our dance of life is only just beginning.”
― Lucinda Riley, Helenas Geheimnis

“I wonder now why humans hate the map of their life that appears on their own bodies, when a tree like this, or a faded painting, or a near-derelict uninhabited building is lauded for its antiquity.”
― Lucinda Riley, Helenas Geheimnis

“my imagination – after ten years of absence, I guess it must be – but I’m convinced my senses are assailed by the smell of that perfume she once wore . . . Closing the door again firmly, not yet able to deal with the Pandora’s Box of memories that would fly out of any of these bedrooms, I retreat back downstairs. I see night has fallen, and it’s pitch-black outside. I check my watch, add two hours for the time difference and realise it’s almost nine in the evening here – my empty stomach is growling for food. I unpack the car and stow the supplies I picked up from the shop in the local village in the pantry, then take some bread, feta cheese and a very warm beer out onto the terrace. Sitting there in the silence, with only the odd sleepy cicada to interrupt its purity, I sip the beer, wondering if it was really a good idea to arrive two days earlier than the others. Navel-gazing is something I have a double first in, after all – to the point where”
― Lucinda Riley, The Olive Tree

“As she lay looking at the lightening sky, she clearly understood for the first time why some people saw no alternative to suicide. Perhaps, she thought, it wasn’t just about outside events, but to do with the perception of oneself; believing you were a good person, that you’d treated those around you with respect and love, was everything. Now, the thought of living with herself every day for the rest of her life, with those she loved most knowing she wasn’t and hadn’t, felt almost untenable.”
― Lucinda Riley, The Olive Tree

“To be honest, talking and your mother have never gone together. The chances are she’d slam the phone down on me when I’d barely opened my mouth.’ ‘Daddy, please try, for me,’ she begged. ‘I really don’t want to go.’ William sighed. ‘Look, darling, I’ve been down this”
― Lucinda Riley, The Olive Tree

“He could reason and manipulate like a seasoned politician and then, on the turn of a sixpence, slip back into his chronological age and become a child again.”
― Lucinda Riley, The Olive Tree