Telling Tales Quotes

“But she thought the men’s brains had turned to jelly. They couldn’t see straight. Faced with a pretty woman they all seemed to lose their reason.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“the light had the clear, sharp quality which comes before rain.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Now it came back in jagged flashes, like the sunlight on the pavements. She thought, This is what it is like to be old. This is how old people remember their childhood.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Delegation was supposed to be about shipping out the crap, but she’d never seemed to have got the hang of it. Usually she was left with that stuff herself.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“What did this remind him of? One of those Westerns he’d liked as a kid. He was the old deputy returning to his home town for the last time to see off the villain. Swaggering into the saloon. Letting the townsfolk know he was back, still alive.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“He’s very focused,’ she said. ‘He decided he wanted to visit and that was it. He wouldn’t think much of anything other than how he’d get here, once the decision was made.’ Christopher had always been like that, even when he was quite young.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“coxswain.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Dan Greenwood was standing at the back of the church next to a large, formidably ugly woman.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“She might as well take the opportunity to take the weight off her feet.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Emma immediately imagined Vera Stanhope standing there. She was certain it was her, could picture her, legs apart, putting all her weight behind the knocking.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Her phone rang just as the launch came back into view. It was Ashworth. ‘I thought you’d like to know what we’ve got so far.’ We. So he’d already started to work his magic, making allies, building bridges. The local team would feel sorry for him, being managed by a fat cow like her.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“She’d play on their sisterhood, the struggle they’d both had to be taken seriously by male colleagues. She imagined reeling Caroline in, disarming her. Beautiful women never see fat, ugly ones as a threat.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“He would have liked to ask if she’d ever wanted children. He’d assumed that all women got broody as they got older. But although he felt close to the fat woman whose presence seemed to take up half his lounge, he thought the question was a bit personal.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Not me, pet. I’m on the side of the angels.’ She held out a hand the size of a shovel. ‘Vera Stanhope.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Mary hadn’t said a word. She’d seemed frozen. It had been as if she were holding her breath.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“obligation to their parents. She said they don’t ask to be born. The obligation all goes one way. I didn’t see it then but now I think she”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“Outside was the huge winter sky, which made you dizzy just to think of it, inside a small family drama, a soap opera. And she was in the middle.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“the unfinished grieving, the foul, flat country.”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales

“that”
― Ann Cleeves, Telling Tales