Maureen Quotes

“It wasn’t that he was losing his mind, rather that he was deliberately taking things out of it that he no longer needed.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“Forgive me, forgive me, for continuing to live when you are gone.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“It struck Maureen that a person could be trapped in a version of themselves that was from another time, and completely miss the happiness that was staring them in the face.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“She couldn't find it. That fleeting moment of goodness. People imagined they might reach each other, but it wasn't true. No one understood another's grief or another's joy. People were not see-through at all.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“The essential loneliness of people was there, wherever you cast your eye—it was in a service station, it was in a bookshop, it was in a parked car by the side of the road—so the things they did to try and bear the loss were choices that required respect. Such acts of love were only so many different ways of saying the same thing, because really there were no words to say.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“The truth was, she could go where she liked, but she would never get away from herself.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“Surely it wasn’t too much to ask that you get to the end, and looking back, you don’t fill with horror and bitterness at all the things you got wrong.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“something about the completeness of his smile made her miss him without even going anywhere, so that he could be as sure as he damn well liked, but she wasn’t.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North

“Rex and I had sandwiches.” “What did you put inside?” “The sandwiches?” “Yes.” “I don’t think we put anything inside them.” “So they were bread, then? Really they were bread.” “Yes,” he said, laughing as if this was a happy new word he hadn’t come across before. “Did you hear that, Rex? Our sandwiches were bread!”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“Brave things had been happening in the world, even though she hadn’t noticed. Tiny black packages of buds on the branches and the smallest of shoots from the ground, as green as jewelry.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“Without any exchange of words, they had taken up each other’s loss, and given meaning to what was unbearable.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“People expected so much of the world. I want to be the world’s guest.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“These days it was all safe motorways and Uber. It was paying with your phone, and please keep your distance, not to mention podcasts, milk made of oats and meat made of plants, and everything streamed online. Look for a bank spilling with primroses and you’d more likely find an old blue mask caught in the leaves. Ten years ago she couldn’t have imagined all the change that was coming.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen

“Anti-vax slogans were sprayed on the concrete underside of a bridge. Fake News. Fake Virus. England was a different country from the one Harold had walked through.”
― Rachel Joyce, Maureen