Girl A Quotes

“That was the problem with coming home: you also had to come to the self which resided there.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“and - though books cannot save you from everything - I hope that you are still reading.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“You can endure an awful lot when you know that you'll be fed at the end of it.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“It wasn't that we had ever been rich, or even comfortable, but we hadn't been poor. The poverty crept into our lives like ivy on a window, slow enough that you don't notice it moving, and then, in no time, so dense that we couldn't see outside.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I had loved JP in all of the ways that it’s unwise to love another person. Dido on the pyre. Antony in Alexandria. Bitch in heat.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Girl A,’ she said. ‘The girl who escaped. If anybody was going to make it, it was going to be you.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“It was the kind of happiness you try to preserve for more difficult days.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Young, and nervous. I worried about every single thing that I said. You'll know what I mean, once you start work. Early on, one worries about every damn thing.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“To them, the past was a sickness which my siblings still carried; you could catch it from a conversation.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“An intimidation of men passed, bare-chested,”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I wore tight, dark clothes, and a smile that I’d practised. Despite the showers and the CK One, I stank of somebody who might need saving, and men liked that best of all.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Oliver, it transpired, was addicted to alcohol and cocaine, and Gabriel was addicted primarily to Oliver; then, as an inevitable accompaniment, to Oliver’s own addictions, at first for Oliver’s approval, and later – as tended to be the case – because he couldn’t stop doing them.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I had the sense of Sunday evening, or the journey back from the airport after a holiday. The feeling of things coming to an end.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I understood that there was a difference between being playful and cruel, but I only ever recognized it once the words were said.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“That was the problem with coming home: you also had to come home to the self who resided there.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Gabriel,”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“to”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“When I looked at my siblings, frailer around the table, it seemed as though they’d taken a little flesh from each of us and made something new.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Each evening, mist seeped in from the Fens, like autumn’s great party trick.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I recognized that my parents were older, and that some of that was my fault. The unanswered messages. The phone call from Dr K, in the early, early morning. Weren't those the things that aged people, more than the fact of time?”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“The past was one of the few foreign countries which neither of us wished to visit.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“I’ll never ask you to pity him,’ she said. ‘Only to understand him.’
We sat as we often did, in deadlock, each of us waiting for the other person to speak.
‘I ask you,’ she said, ‘because I think that it might help you.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“He conjured a spotlight, which travelled down along the balcony, and rested on her face.
‘Your hair,’ he said. ‘All of the lights land in it.’
(All of the lights land in it: an excellent line. While I try to deny it, there were times – when I was younger – when this would have impressed me, too.)
‘Is this how you usually spend your Saturday nights?’ Mother asked.
‘No. Sometimes. I like the technology, you see. And I like to help out.’
Mother leaned against the railing alongside him. She let her hair fall against his arm.
‘I’ve never had company before,’ Father said, and smiled. ‘This makes things much more interesting.’
‘I’m not that interesting at all,’ Mother said. ‘I mean, I’m pretty boring. Actually.’
‘I don’t believe you. What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?’
‘What?’
‘Tell me the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Nobody’s boring when they tell you the best thing that’s ever happened. Go.’
Mother thought of her princess dress, and the faces of the villagers watching the Harvest Festival. In her mind, they multiplied, so that she led the parade through a crowd of hundreds – thousands – of well-wishers.
‘Fine,’ she said. She knew exactly how she would tell it.
‘See,’ Father said, at the end. ‘That wasn’t boring. But it wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to you, either.’
‘It wasn’t?’
‘Of course not,’ Father said. He concentrated on the fuse box, passing it from one great palm to the other. He was smiling, close to laughter. ‘That’s tonight.”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“Oh, Lex,' she said. 'Do you really think I ever left this room?”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A

“weeks, but as of mid-July the team had”
― Abigail Dean, Girl A