The Friend Quotes

“But selective mutism is no easy fix; a child so anxious they are afraid even to hear their own voice in public.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“The ‘problem’ with having a conscience is you expect other people to have one too, so you analyse and evaluate their behaviour according to your own standards. But true sociopaths have no understanding why we all worry about rules or laws . . . or the lives and feelings of others.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“LIBRA Today you must leave it alone. Walk away from it. Be strong, be sensible and above all else, be less bothered. Practise the art of ‘not caring’. There’s your solution.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“People tell you to try not to think about it. Your own instinct is not to think about it. But that doesn’t work,’ she said. ‘The trick is to learn to cope with thinking about it. To accept how truly awful it was. Am I making any sense?”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“I’m Emma, by the way. Emma Carter.’ She began to stretch out her hand but her son wriggled a protest, so she shrugged an apology, looping her hands together to hitch him up to a more comfortable position.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“Not every hour is equal. Ask an insomniac how long the night is.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“She told me, quite matter-of-factly, that for the first two years after her husband’s heart attack, she relived finding him time and time again until she knew every beat of the scene; as if she needed to be sure of every single gasp of pain and every second of what had happened in order to accept it and learn to live with it. ‘People tell you to try not to think about it. Your own instinct is not to think about it. But that doesn’t work,’ she said. ‘The trick is to learn to cope with thinking about it. To accept how truly awful it was. Am I making any sense?”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“It was probably what I liked about her most: this knack of leaving you nowhere to hide. She had a way of looking at you ever so directly and asking the questions that mattered, peeling back your layers and exposing the core that you normally managed to keep from people.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“We’re supposed to be moving into Priory House.’ She pulled a face. ‘At least that was the plan. I’m Emma, by the way. Emma Carter.’ She began to stretch out her hand but her son wriggled a protest, so she shrugged an apology, looping her hands together to hitch him up to a more comfortable position.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“some children are grown in their mummy’s tummies. And some are grown in their hearts.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“Sometimes when we read back what we have written, we read what we intended to write, not what is on the page. And sometimes when we listen, we hear what we expected to hear and not what is being said . . .”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“Toje siaubingoje kelionėje traukiniu nuoširdžiai maniau, kad labiausiai sukrečianti ir svarbiausia pamoka yra suvokimas, ką sugeba padaryti kiti žmonės.
Bet, pasirodo, kai kas gali sukrėsti dar šiurpiau.
Ką - susidūręs su blogiu, dėl meilės - sugebi padaryti pats.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“Kai kuriuos žmones pažįsti daugelį metų, bet iš tiesų jie lieka svetimi.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“[S]ome children are grown in their mummy's tummies. And some are grown in their hearts

And when we are having a tough day, when I doubt whether I am doing a good enough job, when I see him looking at a picture of Emma or find a cutting of a robin tucked under his pillow, that is what I cling to. That I am doing my best.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“there is a much”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“facility,”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend

“Theo’s continuing refusal to speak in front of anyone other than Ben, and him only rarely, sounded very much like a condition called selective mutism. She hadn’t liked to interfere initially, she said, but it was a condition which Helen knew a little about through a friend of her late husband’s who worked in child psychiatry. If she was right, it was something which would definitely need expert help and which was almost always triggered by extreme anxiety.”
― Teresa Driscoll, The Friend