The Lost Girls of Devon Quotes

“Lost girls. I’d found them everywhere, all over the world, all longing for hope, for love, for an answer to their hungers in a world that did not honor them.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“But my dad told me a long time ago that the reason a lot of people fall on their faces is because they can’t handle big things without booze or drugs. You have to figure out how you can face things that hurt or burn or even make you really happy.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“I sometimes wondered if I’d wasted my entire life on a quixotic quest. Had I done anyone any good, ever? Dark thoughts indeed.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Tam Lin, perhaps, already promised to the fairy queen.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“they’re”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“I remembered what I’d read about dementia: just to stay kind and in the moment.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“happens.” It was his turn to be startled into a laugh. Sort of. It was a quiet chuckle, a sideways glance. I had always been able to make him laugh. “Nah,” he countered. “Her last birthday, she was only a hundred and ten.” I smiled, relieved at the release of tension for even a minute. Rain pelted the windscreen and roof and sent wide waves on either side of us as he drove up the hill. A sonata played on the radio, which was old enough to be an AM dial with white marks showing against a greenish light. The village lanes were very dark, and only the dashboard illuminated his face at all, the edges of his hair. For a moment, I was transported back to the soft quiet we’d shared, going everywhere together. I’d never been so comfortable with anyone as I’d been with Cooper. Safe, he’d said. You’re safe here. “We can dash right down the hill from here,” he said, pulling beneath the branches of an ancient”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Five things I could see. The window had six panes. The curtains were blue. The rug was thin and old. Mósí was looking at me like I was crazy. My sheet had flowers. Four things I could feel. My pajamas were soft and warm. The floor was cold. I plopped down beside Mósí and stroked his soft fur. He headbutted me and his nose was a little wet, but when I kissed him and he rubbed my chin and I kissed him again, my heart started to feel a little better. Three things I could hear. Mósí purring, really loud. That made me smile, and I kissed him again, and he crawled up in my lap and I hugged him. His purr was so loud I couldn’t really hear anything else, but I guess silence is a thing. And when I listened very, very hard, I could hear the sea. Two things I could smell. I breathed in and tried to name it, like I was one of my characters. It smelled like dampness and stone. And Mósí, who always smells clean and sweet and nice. I kissed him again, closing my eyes, and felt tears stinging my eyelids. I love him so much. He is the best cat ever in the world. I was supposed to think of one thing I could taste, but I didn’t want to get up, and anyway my heart felt better. My dad did a good thing with Mósí. My cat doesn’t care what happened to me, what I did. He just wants me to love him.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“did”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“He regarded me silently for a long moment. “I could stay. Trounce you in a game of Mille Bornes?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or Yahtzee?”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“rinsed”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Some carry more weight than others,” I agreed, “but each one brings a gift. If you’re so focused on finding just the right person, you might miss the ones who bring you everything you need.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“I’m so lonely. I want to find my soul mate.” “We all have so many,” I said. “You’re bound to find one of them very soon.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“right?”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“of people fall on their faces is because they can’t handle big things without booze or drugs. You have to figure out how you can face things that hurt or burn or even make you really happy.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“But my dad told me a long time ago that the reason a lot”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Breathe in suffering, breathe out peace. I took in the darkness, the heat of anger, my own and that in the world, and the sorrow, and the greed, and held it. I imagined scrubbing the dark mass into something fresh and shiny, and exhaled, letting it go. Whether it helped the world or not was unclear. It did, however, lighten my step.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“I’d studied with gurus and monks and nuns, healers of all ilk across the world, and the best advice was all the same: listening was the thing that could cure most ills, mind or body. No magic. Only listening.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“we need nature, to remind us to be still.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Magic isn’t evil,” I said. “That was simply a way for the church to take the power of women, who were the healers and wise women.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Breathe in suffering, breathe out peace.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“The knot of wrongs sat against my heart day and night, and I didn’t know yet how to dislodge it. How to atone and begin to perhaps make things right.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“Every grief brings back all the old ones,”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“You are my heart and soul and greatest love.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“But life is not an orderly thing, and rules of conduct do not always tell us how to proceed.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“I deeply, painfully wanted to know her, and it appeared that perhaps that would never happen. It was the price I would have to pay for leaving her. Abandoning her. Scarring her. I closed my eyes and let the pain and shame fill me for the space of three breaths. Yearning. Sorrow. Pain. Whatever she doled out now, I had certainly earned.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“That’s what peace is—forgiveness.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“The thought was soft, whispering through my mind, blowing away dust and debris to show me a vision of myself crouching at the edges of my life, fearful of losing even more if I stepped forward.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“How was it possible that after twenty years, that part of it was exactly the same? The chemistry between us was just as it had been when we were teenagers, probably the same as it had been all our lives.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon

“The tears threatening, which would infuriate me. I took in a deep breath, trying to calm down, but there was a cold, furious anger at my core that I couldn’t shake. I turned around. “You’re right. I would have told you not to meet her because you might get hurt. She isn’t reliable.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Lost Girls of Devon