The Great Godden Quotes

“I tend to trust my instincts, though they're not always right. I explore my fingers for restlessness, the back of my neck for tingle. I can feel when my hackles rise, when something shouts danger. Or when I'm feeling flattered and special and awash with well-being.
At that moment, I felt flattered and special and awash with well-being. While somewhere in the distance, a red light flashed.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Was this just what relationships were like these days? Whatever you felt like with whoever was there?”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Was mad, fatal love the only honest love? On the one hand, of course not. On the other, who set out cold-bloodedly to have an affair without even the hope of real feeling, the kind that might last? Was it just naivety on my part, thinking that's how it should happen?”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“When people express nostalgia for youth, I always suspect they have inadequate recall.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“There was something soothing about a wedding, a confirmation that Victorian social order hadn't completely broken down; that it was possible to find your soulmate and live happily ever after like in some cheesy romcom, unlikely though it seemed.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“What annoys me most is that it takes no effort to be born beautiful, no hard work, no mental agility, no strength of character. Just dumb luck. And yet it's a universal currency, often mistaken for moral superiority.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Looking at him was like staring at a prism; you saw something different from every angle. The one definite was that you couldn't stop looking at him.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Hello," he said, his usual brilliant conversation opener.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Swimming naked in broad daylight is a good incentive not to linger.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Summer was for pleasure and boredom, not chaos and doubt.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Tennis, as we know, was not my sport. Sport, in fact, was not my sport.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Every summer needs a theme, and I guess Love and Marriage was marginally better than Death and Despair.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“The hours passed as they did the rest of the year, until whatever it was we were waiting for commenced.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden

“Everyone talks about falling in love like it's the most miraculous, life-changing thing in the world.
Something happens, they say, and you know. You look into the eyes of your beloved and see not only the person you'd always dreamed you'd meet, but the you you've always secretly believed in, the you that inspires longing and delight, the you no one else really noticed before.”
― Meg Rosoff, The Great Godden