Apples Never Fall Liane Moriarty Quotes

Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now.

Watching someone have a panic attack was like looking in the eyes of someone trapped behind glass, drowning right in front of you.

That was the secret of a happy marriage: step away from the rage.

She made the right choice for the girl she was then.

When she looked at photos of her children when they were little, she sometimes thought, Did I notice how beautiful they were? Was I actually there? Did I just skim the surface of my entire damned life?)

She didn’t come from old money or new money but from never-quite-enough money.

She found that the less she thought, the more often she found simple truths appearing right in front of her.

She enjoyed being told off by them. She could hear the rhythms of her own voice, her mother’s voice, her grandmother’s voice, every relieved cranky woman from the beginning of time.

Their mother had that look of controlled impatience she used to get when her children fought and she didn't have time to properly lose her temper because she had things to do.

Each time she fell out of love with him, he saw it happen and waited it out. He never stopped loving her, even those times when he felt deeply hurt and betrayed by her, even in that bad year when they talked about separating, he’d just gone along with it, waiting for her to come back to him, thanking God and his dad up above each time she did.

We're all on our own. Even when you're surrounded by people, or sharing a bed with a loving lover, you're alone.

She believed men’s egos were as fragile as eggs.

There was nothing worse than having to feel sorry for people who had wronged you. You don't want lottery wins for your enemies, but you don't want tragedies for them either. Then they got the upper hand. Damn those Delaneys.

When she thought of that long night, it was like remembering an extraordinarily tough match where she’d prevailed. Except there was no trophy or applause. The only recognition you got for surviving a night like that came from other mothers. Only they understood the epic nature of your trivial achievements.

That’s how she finally made herself fall back to sleep: by remembering all the glorious moments, one after the other after the other, her children’s ecstatic faces looking for their parents in the stands, looking for their approval, looking for their love, knowing it was there, knowing—she hoped they knew this—that it would always be there, even long after she and Stan were gone, because love like that was infinite.

It was just a plate, her father kept saying to Christina. He never understood what that plate represented: Disrespect. Disregard. Contempt.

as her grandfather used to say, “Never spoil a good story with the facts.

She’d never wanted his gratitude, just his acknowledgment. Just once.

Stan Delaney had always known that women had the power to draw blood with their words. It was his mother’s favorite hobby: to knife the soft, stupid, defenseless egos of her husband and her son.

For the first time in her sixty-nine years she felt the fear: the fear every woman knows is always waiting for her, the possibility that lurks and scuttles in the shadows of her mind, even if she’s spent her entire life being so tenderly loved and protected by good men.

That was the secret of a happy marriage. Step away from the rage.

filling her pockets with rocks before she waded out into life.

Now Logan competed against Troy by not competing, which was fucking genius. You couldn’t win if only one of you was playing.

It felt like it was all still there, that time of their lives, somewhere metaphysical, accessible through some magical means other than memory.

Remember your ABC?” he’d ask, so often it got irritating. “Accept nothing. Believe nothing. Check everything,” Christina would answer.

You put up with little things … and then the little things gradually get bigger.

It felt pointless celebrating without other people, as if the whole objective had always been to perform the festivities for an audience.

Ooh, sacrilege!’ Amy had said, because her role as the oldest child was to narrate every family argument and use big words the other kids didn’t understand, while Brooke, still little and adorable, had burst into inevitable tears, and Logan’s face became blank and moronic.

The ones referred to obliquely and the ones discussed in frank detail. She’d give the police everything they needed to convict her husband. She would say, Here is one possible motive and here is another, because any marriage of that many years has multiple motives for murder. Every police officer and hairdresser knows that.

She’d dreamed of playing at Wimbledon too, and she’d dreamed of seeing one of her children or one of her students play at Wimbledon, and she’d dreamed, far more reasonably and feasibly, of one day being a spectator at Wimbledon, but her dreams didn’t have the same ferocious entitlement as Stan’s, because she was a woman, and women know that babies and husbands and sick parents can derail your dreams, at any moment they can drag you from your bed, they can forestall your career, they can lift you from your prized seat at Wimbledon from a match later described as “epic.

They’d been too tired to keep sharpening the edges of their hurt feelings.

She knew one tiny grandchild was all it would take to stop the silence roaring, to make her days splutter back to life again, but you could not ask your children for grandchildren.

No regrets. That was another of his trading rules. Never waste time thinking about what could have been.

Each time she fell out of love with him, he saw it happen and waited it out.

Her mother specialized in the tiny razor-sharp dig wrapped in a soft compliment, so you didn’t notice the blood until afterward.

She thought it was illegal to watch television when the sun was shining.

But how had Grant managed to establish himself as the prize?

Grandchildren would be her second chance to get it right. Now she had the time and the eggs to spare, and she would be present with her grandchildren.

Now here they were. She couldn’t exactly say if Savannah had caught them on an upswing or a downswing, or if they’d finally found an equilibrium that would last them until death did them part. Sometimes it felt like their relationship ebbed and flowed over a day, or even a conversation. She could feel affection followed by resentment in the space of ten minutes.

she thought about that too much and all it implied she could tap into a great well of rage, so she didn’t think about it. That was the secret of a happy marriage: step away from the rage.

Sometimes she abrogated responsibility by fantasizing about kidnappers bursting into the house, bundling her into the back of their van, and taking her away for a long rest in a nice, cool, quiet dungeon.

They needed different personalities to retire with grace and verve like their friends. They needed to be less grumpy (Stan did) and have a wider variety of interests and hobbies beyond tennis. They needed grandchildren.

did not,’ said Stan. ‘I never said he lied. I told him it was an unfortunate reality of the game. I told him he would sometimes face kids who made bad calls and that he shouldn’t focus on his opponent but on his own game.

In case she can't get what's in her head and her heart on the canvas. Maybe she's afraid of being afraid. That she'll be so paralyzed by fear she won't do a thing, she'll just stand there with her paintbrush, feeling like a fraud.

Claire was Troy’s ex-wife, once a much-loved member of the family, just like Indira and to a lesser extent, Grant. It was like a death each time her children broke up with someone, and over the years there had been many, many deaths.

remembering all the glorious moments, one after the other after the other, her children’s ecstatic faces looking for their parents in the stands, looking for their approval, looking for their love, knowing it was there, knowing—she hoped they knew this—that it would always be there, even long after she and Stan were gone, because love like that was infinite.

it was possible this was their first Delaney Christmas ever with just the six of them, because growing up they’d always had the two grandmothers at Christmas lunch, gently lobbing passive-aggressive compliments back and forth across the table.

My God, she despised spaghetti bolognese. Night after night after night, plate after plate after plate. The laundry, the ironing, the mopping, the sweeping, the driving. She’d never resented it at the time but now she resented every moment, every single bloody lamb chop.

she was a woman, and women know that babies and husbands and sick parents can derail your dreams, at any moment they can drag you from your bed, they can forestall your career, they can lift you from your prized seat at Wimbledon from a match later described as “epic.” She

but her dreams didn’t have the same ferocious entitlement as Stan’s, because she was a woman, and women know that babies and husbands and sick parents can derail your dreams, at any moment they can drag you from your bed, they can forestall your career, they can lift you from your prized seat at Wimbledon from a match later described as “epic.

Her fiancé, Nico, now handled all the small-talk requirements of their relationship, chatting to chatty cab drivers and chatty aunts with ease. Christina sometimes fretted she wasn’t bringing enough to the table. ‘A relationship isn’t a bill you split down the middle,’ Nico told her. He was wrong. It was exactly like that. She’d keep an eye on it.

Accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance.

still beat him on the court. His father knew his strengths, his weaknesses, his strategies. Logan was powerless

Didn’t the stupid man realize that he no longer had the power to send anyone to their room?

had begun to occur to her that she wasn’t trapped because of Logan; she’d been trapped in her own Indira self, like everyone was trapped in their own selves.

tennis

There was nothing Joy could do to change the outcome of her children’s lives, any more than she could have changed the outcome of their matches, no matter how hard

Her cup size didn’t suit either her personality or profession but she was descended from a long line of short, acerbic, busty women, and so this was her lot.

He hated Harry for dumping his father even more than he hated him for cheating.

On the surface they seemed loving and cheerful but she could sense dysfunction bubbling ominously beneath their sporty, matter-of-fact demeanours.

It was strange how he’d always made her feel like they were winning as a couple, even when they were breaking up.

What was the actual benefit of accuracy when it came to memories?

The risk of upsetting Stan outweighed the risk of upsetting Amy. The risk of upsetting Stan had always outweighed the risk of upsetting any of the children. Nearly always.

She was a feminist. An athlete. A very successful businesswoman. She refused to be that particular cliché.

Well, if it was a diary, Joy certainly would not read it. Absolutely not. That sort of gross invasion of privacy was only appropriate for one’s own children.

They were only on the very outer edge of old age, they were not yet dealing with dementia or confusion, just bad knees and indigestion, some insomnia, apparently.

and the memory had vanished, the way old clothes vanished and you forgot they had ever existed until an old photo reminded you: I loved that T-shirt.

He just randomly, arbitrarily, idiotically broke her heart.

life goes on. We live to play another day.

It’s hard to want something so badly and give it your all and then not get it. There’s this idea that all you need to do is believe in yourself,

It occurred to Jacob that a man who could take such pleasure in watching someone else's children compete in a backyard tennis match would probably have quite liked at least one athletic child of his own, rather than the two uncoordinated, academic kids he got. It said something about his dad that it had taken Jacob thirty-four years for that thought to occur to him.

Brooke was meant to avoid stress because of her migraines, not chase it, but she’d always been a martyr. Amy remembered Brooke as a little girl, high pigtails and reflective sunglasses.

if she thought about that too much and all it implied she could tap into a great well of rage, so she didn’t think about it. That was the secret of a happy marriage: step away from the rage.

You want me to do the gutters?’ Logan had said. Climate change. His mother threw certain phrases around at random to make sure they knew she was up to date with current affairs and listened to podcasts.

Sometimes their children would do everything exactly as they’d taught them, and sometimes they would do all the things they’d told them not to do, and seeing them suffer the tiniest disappointments would be more painful than their own most significant losses, but then other times they would do something so extraordinary, so unexpected and beautiful, so entirely of their own choice and their own making,

Here’s the thing. You don’t know my father. He’s a stranger to you. All you see is a grumpy old man. He suppresses his emotions. That’s what men of his age do. That’s probably why he looks guilty to you.

Amy, who was handling lockdown far better than her friends, because they had never experienced the permanent low-level sense of existential dread that Amy had been experiencing since she was eight years old.

The time will come, my darling, we’ll get frail and sick and stubborn and your stomach will twist with love and terror each time we call, but plenty of time, don’t get ahead of yourself, we’re not there yet.

Amy had never had a boyfriend hit her, although she’d had a couple who fucked her when she was too out of it to consent, but that was before consent got fashionable. Those kinds of incidents used to be considered ‘funny’. Even ‘hilarious’. The worse you felt, the louder you laughed. The laughter was necessary because it put you back in charge. You didn’t remember, so you created a memory you hoped was the truth.

All her children would be single. All possible grandchildren swept off the table in one fell swoop. It would knock her for six, as their father would say. He hated cricket, but liked that particular sporting colloquialism.

You can choose the right shot, you can have a good swing and good technique, you can do everything right, and it can still go wrong. No player, no matter how good, makes one hundred percent of their shots. Some days you lose.

She thought of a night when Troy had been playing all the way out at Homebush in a tournament that ran so far behind schedule he didn’t even get onto the court until midnight. Stan was with Troy, Joy was at home with the other kids. Logan was worryingly sick with a temperature. She didn’t sleep that night. She baked thirty cupcakes for Brooke’s birthday the next day in between tending to Logan, she did three loads of laundry, she did the accounts, and she did Troy’s history assignment on the Great Wall of China. She got seven out of ten for the assignment (she was still furious about that; she’d deserved a nine). When she thought of that long night, it was like remembering an extraordinarily tough match where she’d prevailed. Except there was no trophy or applause. The only recognition you got for surviving a night like that came from other mothers. Only they understood the epic nature of your trivial achievements.

He told Harry that he had to win prize money so his sister could get some kind of life-saving medicine. Dumb kid thought he was playing to save his sister’s life. No wonder he cheated. If he’d stayed with me, I would have found out and put a stop to

meant working-class kids like Stan no longer spent their childhoods whacking a tennis ball but hunched over tiny screens. Logan’s point was: Don’t you dare think I grew up rich and privileged just because this bush neighbourhood got all posh and gentrified.

The girl said, ‘Sometimes you locked me in my room with only water. I had to ration the water. That was a terrible thing to do to a little girl. I thought I would be there forever. I thought I would die. I think I might have come close to dying. A few times.

Troy couldn’t make himself care or focus. The market was quiet, but not that quiet. His heart wasn’t in it. He’d made only one trade in the last two hours. That was a signal he should stop for the day, according to his own rules, and rule number one was Follow Your Own Rules.

She was Joy’s confidante and confessor, as bound by secrecy as a priest or lawyer, but if Joy missed her next appointment, Narelle would go to the police and hand over thirty years of secrets. She’d tell them about the betrayals. The ones referred to obliquely and the ones discussed in frank detail. She’d give the police everything they needed to convict her husband. She would say, Here is one possible motive and here is another, because any marriage of that many years has multiple motives for murder. Every police officer and hairdresser knows that.

Then how is it that not a single one of you can maintain a long-term relationship? Did your father and I not set a good example to you? Of a good marriage?’ Her children all dropped their heads as if she’d called for volunteers for an unpleasant task. ‘So your dad and I weren’t

She had the kind of thin bony body and hard face that speaks of addiction and the streets. There was a nearly healed cut over one eye with faint purplish bruising, and Troy tried to feel the sympathy she obviously deserved, but his heart was as hard and suspicious as an ex-girlfriend’s.

Joy and Stan used to exchange smiles as their ponytailed daughter glided back and forth across the court, when she was maybe eight or nine, back when she had a “funny little personality” not “a possible mental illness.” (Joy never forgave the GP who wrote that particular referral letter.)

Harry Potter deserved to feel fear and confusion, because he was legally, morally and spiritually in the wrong. It happened so rarely that you knew that you were right and the other guy was wrong; Troy was Spider-Man, the Hulk, Captain America. He was goddamned Batman. He had never felt better.

I must eat,” said Amy. “Brooke, go tell Mum we have to eat something now because you’re getting a migraine.” “You tell her you have to eat because you’re having a panic attack,” retorted Brooke. “Tell her Logan is hungry,” said Troy. “She won’t want Logan to be hungry.” “I told her I was hungry an hour ago,” said Logan.

And sometimes they’d argue about which of them was the villain or the victim, the martyr or the hero. “That wasn’t you that got stung by the bee, helping Grandma after she fainted at Troy’s party, it was me!” And Joy would think, It was Logan’s party, not Troy’s, and there was no bee, it was a wasp, and no one got stung, Amy just thought she did, and none of you helped, and Grandma didn’t faint, she passed out drunk. Her children refused to be corrected. That’s what they remembered, therefore that was what happened, and when their memories didn’t match up with each other’s, they held on tight to their versions of the stories, as stubborn as their damned father.

She moved through therapists like she moved through boyfriends. She dumped both boyfriends and therapists when they offended her, enraged her, bored her. The boyfriends said she was a head case, a nut case, a drama queen, a psycho. The therapists said she had ADHD or OCD, depression or anxiety or most likely both, a nervous disorder, a mood disorder, a

You can choose the right shot, you can have a good swing and good technique, you can do everything right, and it can still go wrong. No player, no matter how good, makes one hundred percent of their shots. Some days you lose. They'd drummed that into the children too. You can be number one in the world, you can win and win and win but it's inevitable: eventually you will lose.

He was a man who didn’t own a mobile phone, as a matter of principle and stubborn pride. He loved it when people were shocked to discover he had never owned one, never would own one. He truly believed it made him morally superior, which drove Joy bananas because, excuse me, he was not. The way he talked about his “stance” on mobile phones, you would think he were the lone person in the crowd not giving the Nazi salute. Before their retirement he told people, “I don’t need a phone, I’m a tennis coach, not a surgeon. There are no tennis emergencies.” There were so tennis emergencies, and more than once over the years she’d been furious when she couldn’t contact him and she was left in a tricky situation that would have been instantly solved if he’d owned a phone. Also, his principles didn’t prevent him from happily picking up the landline and calling Joy on her mobile when she was at the shops, to ask how much longer she’d be, or to please buy more chili crackers, but when Stan was gone, he was gone, and if she thought about that too much and all it implied she could tap into a great well of rage, so she didn’t think about it.

Separation anxiety was the very first label Joy heard applied to her oldest child, the first of many labels she’d hear over the years, but Joy had felt no sense of foreboding when she heard that first one. She’d felt foolish pride: my child can’t bear to be separated from me! That’s how much she loves me. Amy used to cling to her like a koala, her face pressed against Joy’s collarbone.

Oh my Lord, there was his precious laminator, which Troy got him last Christmas, thus beginning Stan’s obsession with laminating anything he could find: instructions for using the TV remote (admittedly helpful), the article in the local paper about the sale of Delaneys, inspiring sporting quotes he printed out from the internet and wanted to remember. He’d laminate Joy if he got the chance.

because she was a woman, and women know that babies and husbands and sick parents can derail your dreams, at any moment they can drag you from your bed, they can forestall your career, they can lift you from your prized seat at Wimbledon from a match later described as ‘epic’. She thought she’d need to call an ambulance or take him to a hospital. She was thinking about travel insurance and telling the children, and how would they transport his body home?

Joy preferred not to embarrass Steffi by offering her dog food as Steffi didn’t appear to know she was a dog. She chatted at length with Joy each morning after breakfast, making strange, elongated whining sounds that Joy knew were her sadly unintelligible attempts at English. The one time they’d taken her to the local dog park, Steffi had been appalled and sat at their feet with an expression of frozen hauteur on her face, as if she were a society lady at McDonald’s.