The Flatshare Quotes

“Being nice is a good thing. You can be strong and nice. You don’t have to be one or the other.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Remind myself that there is no saving of people—people can only save themselves. The best you can do is help when they're ready.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“My dad likes to say, ‘Life is never simple’. This is one of his favourite aphorisms.

I actually think it’s incorrect. Life is often simple, but you don’t notice how simple it was until it gets incredibly complicated, like how you never feel grateful for being well until you’re ill, or how you never appreciate your tights drawer until you rip a pair and have no spares.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“I wake with a jolt that sends a shock of pain through my ankle. Crying out, I look around me. Floral wallpaper. Am I at home? Who's that man in the chair by the door, reading .... "Twilight?" Leon blinks at me, putting the book down in his lap. 'You went from unconscious to judgemental very quickly there.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“It was never home until you were there, Tiffy.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“It’s weird how easily you can get to know someone from the traces they leave behind when they go.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Have you ever looked forward to reading a book so much you can’t actually start it?”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Look,' he says, 'have you ever looked forward to reading a book so much you can't actually start it?'
'Oh totally. All the time - if I had a grain of self-restraint I never would've been able to read the last Harry Potter book. The anticipation was painful. You know like what if it does live up to the last ones? What if it's not what I hope it'll be?”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Some people are beyond aromatherapeutic help”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Your brain can do amazing stuff to protect itself from pain," Mo tells me. "But it'll struggle to keep secrets from the rest of you for long.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“I stop dead in my tracks. Someone behind me walks into me and swears (stopping abruptly in central London is a heinous crime, and immediately gives the people around you permission to kick you).”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“We're so overdressed for a daytime event about crochet.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Two a.m. is a terrible time for dwelling on legal issues. Worst of all the times. If midnight is witching hour, 2 a.m. is dwelling hour.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“This is the bit where we turn on the telly and a nuclear war has started," I say, twisting to lie down next to him.

He smiles. "I don't think so. Doesn't work that way. Sometimes the happy thing just happens.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“oversharing is contagious.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“It can take people time to notice and process emotional abuse.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Who'd have thought -- you say something true enough times, you try hard enough, and maybe it sinks in.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Holly couldn't sleep; we played checkers. She lifts her fingers and dances them over the board like she's weaving a magic spell before she touches a counter. Apparently it's a mind game - makes the other player watch where you're going instead of planning their next move. Where did a seven-year old learn mind games?”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Humiliation is like mould: ignore it and the whole place will get smelly and green.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“It was a weird way to get to know Leon, writing all these notes over the last few months, and it sort of happened without me noticing - one minute I was scribbling him a quick note about leftovers, the next I was in a full-on, day-to-day correspondence.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“Often think it must be very tiring, being Tiffy. Even in note form she seems to expend so much energy.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“I hand her the coffee. She gives it a sip, then nods in approval. I do a little fist pump, officially becoming a less odious human being than the man who wants to build a wall between Mexico and the US.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“He's where my mind goes when I'm feeling my best.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“It all seems too good, like we can't possibly deserve it, like we're taking too much happiness and not leaving enough for everyone.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“How much did it hurt to come all this way knowing it was just to say goodbye?”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“You’re lovely, and I will never hurt you how he hurt you. (That part was me.) Leon xx”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“I'm just conveying the brutality of the market to you, Katherin,' I say. That's one of my favourite lines. Good old market, always there to be blamed. "The people don't want history in their crochet books. They want cute pictures and easy instructions.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“The sudden rememberings are striking at entirely random times now, just bobbing up out of nowhere and sending me absolutely reeling.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“People struggle to see it's not about whether she's going to die - palliative care isn't just a place you go to slowly slip away. More people live and leave than die on our wards. It is about being comfortable for the duration of something necessary and painful. Making bad times easier.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare

“There’s lots of ways someone can make you stay with them, or think you want to.”
― Beth O'Leary, The Flatshare