The Break Quotes

“I should have learned mindfulness, and it’s too late now because it’s no good learning it when you’re already in crisis: you have to start when things are good. But only the very, very oddest would think, Hey, my life is perfect. I know! I’ll sit and waste twenty minutes Observing My Thoughts without Judgement.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“But that's the point, Amy. It's easy to love someone when they're on their best behaviour — you can do that in your sleep. The real test is when they're — to use Neeve's expression — a pain in the hole. That's what love actually means.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Where does love go when it dies? Into flowers and other beautiful things? Back out into the universe to be recycled?”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Worse, neither of us has liked any of the other’s Facebook posts, the modern equivalent of pistols at dawn.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“But being a survivor is hard bloody work, harder than it looks, and I think I might be running low on survivor juice. Given the choice, I’d far rather a pampered life of indulgence where nothing bad ever happens.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“I wake with a thought: This is my life. I’ve only got one. I should live it the way I want”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“I don’t want to be dead. I’m curious about how things will turn out. This is good, right?”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Creating a healthy relationship is like creating a small, land-locked country. The borders are always under threat and every day you have to shore them up. So when something in the country implodes, the shockwaves move outwards and the borders push back until eventually the crisis subsides …”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“The thing about personal growth, I’ve discovered, is that you rarely get any choice in it. It only ever happens as a side-effect of some loss or trauma.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Stop, would you? My confidence is in bits. I’m forty-four and feeling every second of it, and even if I wanted to, there’s no way I’d reveal this elderly body to a new man. It’d be like Game of Thrones when Melisandra takes off her necklace and ages nine hundred years.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“This being human is a Guest House Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, Who violently sweep your house Empty of its furniture. Still treat each guest honourably, He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Is this what life is all about? To bring us face to face with our worst fears until they no longer scare us?”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“I click to buy it and I’m furious to discover that it’s not available in Ireland and they won’t post it from abroad and the only place that sells it is Harrods and it’s impossible for me to go to Harrods because it’s like being trapped in an Escher painting.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“I’m shifting my position, reaching out to those who think the way I do. I’m finding my tribe.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“I would get used to it. People eventually become inured to the most appalling circumstances.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“The pain abates to a dull ache.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“We all have our gifts and admittedly, yes, mine is fairly niche, but if there was a career in it, I’d be extremely highly regarded.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Suddenly a part of my life had exploded into glorious technicolour.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Emotions – particularly the unpleasant ones – dole themselves out in fits and starts. They play their cards close to their chests, taking pride in their unpredictability.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“It’s simply human nature – we mistakenly think there are only so many disasters to be allocated, and if it’s happening to someone else, we’ll be spared.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“My pain becomes her pain, and it cuts both ways.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“As that song tells us, we never know what we’ve got till it’s gone.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“preferably desperate. And”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“what,”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“All that I knew for sure is, I wanted to be as happy as possible for as long as I’d got, and my every second was so much better with Hugh than without him.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“time I’ll”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“Hamstrung as I am with shortness and a tendency to roundness, which I need to watch like a hawk, I certainly don’t look the part.”
― Marian Keyes, The Break

“mind her when I’m away?’ I stayed overnight in”
― Marian Keyes, The Break