If I Never Met You Quotes

“Those who said family mattered above all else were wrong. People you love, who love you back, matter above all. Crap people you happen to be related to: you need to stop thinking you owe them a limitless number of chances to hurt you.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“keep a close eye on the worst things that happened to you, they could turn out to be a doorway, a route to someplace else entirely, a map you couldn’t yet read.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“God, whenever I forget why I hate men, one of them reminds me.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“In this moment, she made herself a promise: in the very unlikely event she found herself in love with anyone again, she’d assert herself. She’d say what she wanted, not endlessly accommodate his needs. If that made her a bitch at any point, so be it. There were no rewards to being a walkover.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“At some point, you have to give up wishing for your parents to be who you wanted them to be and accept them as they are,”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“It feels like a conversation you never want to end, I suppose. “A renewable energy source. You know how with some people you can’t get chatting off the ground? They’re hard work? Falling in love is the extreme opposite. Endless fascination. It’s effortless. A spark turns into a flame turns into a fire. That doesn’t go out.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Laurie," he said quietly. Not a question, or an opening to saying anything else. A full sentence in itself.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“This was a category error that too many people made - thinking untruths that didn't add up were better than a hard truth.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“She loved him. They’d long ago passed the point where her love was negotiable; it wasn’t contingent on him not being an arsehole. He was her arsehole.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“You know that this is really rude, right? I mean, you know you can’t stick “no offense” on the end like it takes the curse off?”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“No one, not even Prince at the height of his fame, Laurie reckoned, could maintain their adulthood persona around their parents. Your closest family returned you to whence you'd came, when you were still a work in progress. They weren't fooled for a second. Older you was a construct.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“If you're a mistake you're the greatest one ever made. I'm really proud to know you.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“She thought there was a lot of truth in the closest friendships being unconsummated romances.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Claiming to care about someone or something, Laurie saw, could be highly manipulative. It was a way of ascribing yourself rights.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“When people did monumentally awful things to you, it seemed they didn't even have the courtesy of being original, of inflicting some unique war wound, a lightning bolt-shaped scar.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Laurie briefly debated saying: You know that this is really rude, right? I mean, you know you can’t stick “no offense” on the end like it takes the curse off? And then made the usual British calculations about the ten seconds of triumph not being worth the hours of embarrassment and hostility afterward.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Lobster tacos," Emily said, studying the menu and speaking over a remix of Ed Sheeran. "Lobster tacos. Sometimes you feel we've strayed far from God's light, don't you?”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“I think women spend a lot of time beating themselves up about how they caused or deserved male behavior, and it doesn’t happen anything like the same way in reverse. They get on with doing what they wanna do.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Keep a close eye on the worst things that happened to you, they could turn out to be a doorway, a route to someplace else entirely, a map you couldn't yet read.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“One of the things those sessions taught me is, you need to speak up, ask for help. If you don’t tell people why you’re suffering, or even that you’re suffering, they can’t help you.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“It feels like a conversation that you never want to end, I suppose. A renewable energy source. You know how with some people you can't get chatting off the ground. They're hard work? Falling in love is the extreme opposite. Endless fascination. It's effortless. A spark turns into a flame turns into a fire. That doesn't go out.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“The air was thick with a Terrible Unsaid.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“There should be a clever word, a German word, for that feeling when someone lets you down and it's not remotely surprising and yet still shocking.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Put it this way. I’m kind of a communist when it comes to relationships.” “You think we should all be state owned?” “I think whenever they fail, we focus on what specific people did wrong within the system, overlooking the fact that the whole institution’s rotten and dysfunctional”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“The world could do with more Erics and fewer of other people.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Falling in love is the extreme opposite. Endless fascination. It’s effortless. A spark turns into a flame turns into a fire.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“It feels like a conversation that you never want to end, I suppose. A renewable energy source.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Your closest family returned you to whence you’d came, when you were still a work in progress. They weren’t fooled for a second. Older you was a construct.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“You know, the whole romantic comedy staple of The One Who Comes Into Your Life Unexpectedly And Changes Everything. Setting aside that no one's capable of that if you're a grown adult who knows their own mind, why is that a good thing? I don't want to be changed. I like myself as I am.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

“Laurie was starting to feel light pressure from her bladder too. She had visions of having to squat in the corner while Jamie Carter turned his back and whistled a Maroon 5 tune.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You