Hepworth Quotes

The library belongs to everyone. The library, Janet used to say, is one of only a few places in the world that one doesn't need to believe anything or buy anything to come inside.

God, there must be a meaning. Fiercely he was certain that there must be a meaning. Surely, while we live we are not lost. Oh Janos, Janos my brother! Surely we are not lost--while we live.

I like it when people remember that I'm a person, not just a person with Alzheimer's.

but I doubt there is a loss in the universe more profound than a daughter losing her mother.

When you get to my age,' he says, his face softening, 'you don't waste time with regrets. In the end, you just remember the moments of joy. When all is said and done, those are the things we keep.

I worked hard for everything I ever cared about, & nothing I ever cared about cost a single cent." ~ Mum

Angry is just a pen name for sad,” Janet had explained. “In my experience, nine times out of ten if you are kind to the angry person, you will calm them down and find out what is really going on with them.

People underestimate the role fate plays in our lives.

I’d always found there was something agreeable about people who liked dogs and something untrustworthy about those who didn’t.

Sons see the best parts of you, but daughters really see you. They see your flaws and your weaknesses. They see everything they don’t want to be. They see you for exactly who you are … and they hate you for it.

I never had a good answer to Mom's question. 'If I don't remember, will I have been here at all?' But maybe her question was flawed. Maybe it doesn't matter what you remember. Maybe if someone else remembers and speaks your name, you were here.

To my family and friends who live in terror of being cast as a villain in one of my books. It's a valid fear. Be nice to me.

Maybe when it comes to sisters, boundaries are always a little bit blurry. Blurred boundaries, I think, are what sisters do best.

You might start something on a lie, or finish it on a lie, but that doesn't mean that everything in the middle isn't the truth.

If it were up to me, every child would have a year in the library before they went to school.

maybe, she was so busy looking at the problems in the world, she forgot to give chances to those right under her nose.

The less perfect things were, she was finding, the more likely they were to be real.

What happens in our childhood shapes us – our ability to relate to people, to manage our emotions, to control our impulses.

Perhaps the very worst people still had some good in them. And perhaps the very best had some bad.

Some people jumped in and tried to save someone who was in trouble; others did anything they could to save themselves.

One thing you didn’t realize until you were a grandparent was that little children were a tiny glimpse of magic in a dreadfully difficult world”.

I doubt there is a loss in the universe more profound than a daughter losing her mother.

Who are we after we’re gone? I wonder. It’s a good question to ponder. Most people can’t come up with an answer right away. They frown, consider it for a minute. Maybe even sleep on it. Then the answers start to come. We’re our children. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live, because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.

That people without sisters think it’s all sunshine and lollipops or all blood and guts. But actually it’s always both. Sunshine and guts. Lollipops and blood.

Angry is just a pen name for sad,

I’m beginning to think Wally was right when he said I was normal and everyone else were the weirdos.

. . . there’s really only two pieces of wisdom worth leaving behind. I worked hard for everything I ever cared about. And nothing I ever cared about cost a singly cent.

Funny how love can remain, despite everything

Sometimes," I said thoughtfully, "the road to our destination leads us in a direction we don't want to take. But does it matter, in the end, if it gets us where we want to go?

Even after all these years, yearning for the love and attention of someone who couldn’t give it to her was much more comfortable than actually receiving it.

Things were far better watched from a distance....When you watched too closely, you saw things you didn't want to see.

The library, Janet used to say, is one of only a few places in the world that one doesn’t need to believe anything or buy anything to come inside

It’s funny how desperately the brain will seek an answer if it doesn’t have one. Not knowing is not a restful state.

It was amazing, the effect a father had on a person. A father was the benchmark that told you what to expect. What to accept. And, perhaps most importantly, what to believe about yourself. Her father had taught her to expect nothing and to accept less. And he’d taught her to believe that she was nothing.

Turns out I don't need someone holding my board and pushing me into the wave - I can do it myself. Several times as, as I ride the wave, I have that glorious, blissful feeling... like I'm flying. It's even better than the feeling I had the day Gabe took me surfing. Because it taught me that Gabriel Gerard isn't the only one who can make magic. I can make magic too.

Sisterly relationships are so strange in this way. The way I can be mad at Rose but still want to please her. Be terrified of her and also want to run to her. Hate her and love her, both at the same time. Maybe when it comes to sisters, boundaries are always a little bit blurry. Blurred boundaries, I think, are what sisters do best.

We’re our children. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live, because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.

What's the point in having a mentally ill aunt if she can't buy you a Nerf Super Soaker Electrostorm Blaster?

I might not be the best conversationalist.. but I'm not a bad listener.

One thing I’ve learned about facing fear,” he says, “is that sometimes, it’s just too scary.

What else would I do? Sit around counting my gold? Besides, working is important to a person’s mental health.

The thing that makes ethics interesting is that no two individuals see things the same. We all have our own internal barometer of what’s right and wrong.

Mum was right when she said that taking a child to the library is the very best education you could give a child.

Sometimes,' I said thoughtfully, 'the road to our destination leads us in a direction we don't want to take.

It is just a problem, Antoinette, he would probably have said, and a problem is only a problem until you solve it.

We trust people based on the strangest, most arbitrary things, none of which have any bearing on whether or not you are inherently good.

That’s another funny thing about marriage. Sometimes, when you look back on it, the worst moments are in fact the best.

You cannot go to the beach without coming back feeling a little better,

Your mother was my life partner, he always says, and a life partner is for life.

Instead she was a spectator—a strange woman in a bathrobe, watching through the window. But she was going to get her life back. That was exactly what she’d come to Pleasant Court to do.

It’s the truth. Ollie and Nettie would never help me. I’m their mother, which means in our relationship they will always be children, and will only see things from their own perspectives.

You know how you feel for someone you know who is hurt or sick or sad? Imagine feeling that for everyone. Not just everyone you know, but everyone. Every person in the world. All the time.

Led Zeppelin created their music from a diet of Bert Jansch, Memphis Minnie, John Fahey, Billy Fury, Phil Spector, Richard 'Rabbit' Brown, Moby Grape, Manitas De Plata and Om Kalsoum. Those who came afterwards were content with a diet of Led Zeppelin, which is not the same thing at all.

Dementia isn’t the only place that memories are found to be flawed—people find out they can’t rely on their memories every day. People blindsided in relationships. People who find out their truth is a lie. People pulled from trauma. People awakened, as in Anna and Eve. I wondered: If you can’t use memories to steer your life, what can you use? I didn’t know. It was why I had to write this book.

My ambition is not to leave behind me a pile of money for my heirs to quarrel about, but to find out what there is of interest in this world before I cross the border and begin to explore the other world.

The thing about marriage a lot of people don’t understand is that you don’t get everything. Some people get passion, others get security. Some get companionship. Children. Money. Wisdom. Status. Then there is trust and fidelity.

That people without sisters think it’s all sunshine and lollipops or all blood and guts. But actually it’s always both. Sunshine and guts. Lollipops and blood. Good and bad. The bad is as essential to the relationship as the good.

She just needed to reframe, that was all. People reframed all the time. People who realized they weren't going to live a long life. People who lost a loved one, suffered an accident, lost use of a limb. They reframed. And [she] would too.

Panic was her constant state of being, as familiar to her as breathing. She imagined that even as a newborn she'd awoken each day with her heart in her throat, asking, What will today be like? Will I forget something, or say the wrong thing? How can I make everyone happy? What if I can't?

By the time I get out of the shower, Tom is in bed. At first I think he is asleep, but as soon as I crawl in beside him, his eyes open. “How are you going to live without me?” he says. We both chuckle, even as a tear slides from the corner of Tom’s eye. “I won’t,” I say, and then he reaches for me and we don’t talk anymore

I look up. Carmel is wearing those eyeglasses that become sunglasses when you go outside. Except she’s inside and the glasses don’t seem to have realized.

hand

father was the benchmark that told you what to expect. What to accept. And, perhaps most importantly, what to believe about yourself.

Then again, I’d also believed him when he said he’d never cheat on me. Goes to show how dangerous it can be, thinking that you know someone.

There's enough blindness and treachery in the high places without ordinary people turning to hatred and stupid cant.

It was curious the way wealthy people found other people's poverty thrilling; often it even morphed into a perverse sort of admiration.

Yes, he could hurt me. But he was the only one who could make me fly.

All records are moments. But the great records are for moments to which we wish to return.

It was an evening of that feeling you wanted to bottle, the feeling that no drug or orgasm could replicate—the skyrocketing high of limerence.

Either way, those are the strange, beautiful, and bizarre moments of marriage that no one tells you about. The moments that, even after everything, still pierce your heart.

Our one nonnegotiable had always been loyalty. And what was infidelity if not a lapse in loyalty?

Maybe, for us, love was something to be whispered. Or, perhaps, never spoken of at all.

She’s a miracle,” Wally says. I think about that. “Well, no, not really. Pregnancies are actually biologically quite straightforward.

This happened from time to time. She’d be going along just fine when wham—a darkness descended, bringing with it a certainty that life wasn’t worth living. That she wasn’t worthy.

There are those who insist they are far too busy to read and who instead spend their time watching Netflix and scrolling social media on their iPhones or Androids.

My left hand is my thinking hand (image), my right hand my doing hand (sequence).

Life is too short not to kiss.

Good!

Someone once told me that you have two families in your life—the one you are born into and the one you choose. But that’s not entirely true, is it? Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don’t, for instance, choose your children. You don’t choose your brothers- or sisters-in-law, you don’t choose your partner’s spinster aunt with the drinking problem or cousin with the revolving door of girlfriends who don’t speak English. More importantly, you don’t choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all.

She chalked up Kevin’s easy acceptance of the situation to the fact that she was extremely attractive, and men tended to make poor choices when it came to extremely attractive women.

The sound of a phone ringing is among the most crazy-making noises in the world for me. The tinny, repetitive sound of it. The accompanying vibration. Thankfully, my phone rarely rings.

It’s funny, even though we’ve just been discussing dementia-related stuff, for the last few minutes, it didn’t feel like either of us had dementia. It felt like we were just a guy and a girl, discussing life.

The library, Janet used to say, is one of only a few places in the world that one doesn’t need to believe anything or buy anything to come inside … and it is the librarian’s job to look after all those who do.

The library, Janet used to say, is one of only a few places in the world that one doesn’t need to believe anything or buy anything to come inside … and it is the librarian’s job to look after all those who do. I

If you were lucky, it implied that your good fortune hadn't been earned. You couldn't question it, or take it for granted. You had to be grateful. Because what had been given to you could just as easily be taken away.

You were ghosted, Pip. You’re not meant to call people who have ghosted you.” “What are you meant to do if you’re ghosted?” Kat thought about this. “Honestly, I don’t know. Lesbians enjoy talking about our feelings too much to ghost people.

It’s as if, while living your life, you view the world through a straw. You see only the tiniest sliver, all of it from your own perspective. Other people have their motives, their backstories, their feelings, but you don’t know that unless they share them with you, and even then there’s every chance they’re lying or prevaricating. What strikes me most now is the audacity of people, walking around with such certainty while armed with only the scantest information. I’m ashamed to say I was one of those people.

Being poor and having to survive without my parents was the single most defining thing I’ve ever done. It showed me what I was capable of. As a mother, I think this is the most important gift you can give to your children. Unlike money, it can’t be taken away or lost.

Asha was the product of my husband’s affair. Her very existence should have been a painful reminder, a slap in the face. Somehow, though, the opposite was true. Asha was a living breathing embodiment of the magic of Gabe. The beauty that came from the ugliness. She was the payoff for all the pain.

It didn’t take long before Mum’s voice permanently took up residence in my mind. It was clear that something was very wrong with me. I was stupid, lazy, selfish. I didn’t pay enough attention to things; I didn’t look after my sister properly. I was bad. Sometimes I was bad even when I hadn’t done anything.

If you ask me, everyone is a little too interested in their children’s happiness. Ask anyone what they wish for their kids and they’ll all say they want them to be happy. Happy! Not empathetic contributing members of society. Not humble, wise and tolerant. Not strong in the face of adversity or grateful in the face of misfortune. I, on the other hand, have always wanted hardship for my kids. Real, honest hardship. Challenges big enough to make them empathetic and wise. Take the pregnant refugee girls I deal with every day. They’ve been through unimaginable hardships, and here they are working hard, contributing and grateful. What more could you want for your kids?

Oh, I prefer not to touch people if I can possibly help it. Did you know that we carry an average of thirty-two hundred bacteria from a hundred and fifty species on our hands at any one time? This includes fecal bacteria! If I shook hands with everyone I met at the library, I’d be constantly ill, not to mention contaminated with god knows what.

Can I say something?” he says. “I know you love your sister, but…” He shakes his head, sighs. “Something isn’t right about her. It’s like she doesn’t know where she ends and you begin. It’s like she thinks … you belong to her or something.” I frown. “And you don’t have great boundaries with her either. You blindly believe things that she tells you. You don’t question anything she says.

How exquisitely, stupidly tragic. That was when I decided I’d never marry my soulmate. From what I could see, marrying your soulmate was reckless. A commitment like marriage was best treated like a contract, with a list of terms and conditions, and the potential to extricate yourself if the terms were breached. If I left love out of it, I would never end up the way my mother had, I reasoned.

One thing you didn’t realize until you were a grandparent was that little children were a tiny glimpse of magic in a dreadfully difficult world. They had to be disciplined, sure, but they also had to be enjoyed. Parents worked so hard these days that often they didn’t make time to enjoy them, but grandparents knew better. The days were long and years were short, that was what everyone said these days.

It’s funny, what the younger generation assumes we don’t know. They assume we couldn’t possibly understand the agony of heartbreak, or the pressure of buying a house. We couldn’t understand infertility or depression or the fight for equality. If we have experienced any of these things, they were milder, softer versions, played out in sepia, not experiences that could compare to theirs. You have no idea what I know, I want to tell her. Instead I open my arms and let her lie against my shoulder and cry.

Being Tully’s sister required a very specific skill set. You had to be an animated conversationalist (Tully was easily bored) but also a calming influence. You had to be fully invested in whatever she was talking about but be prepared for the fact that Tully would lose interest five minutes later. You had to love her with your whole heart but do so from arm’s length. Getting close to her was like trying to get close to a helicopter—you always ended up windswept and breathless…and occasionally you lost your head.

Caroline rose. She studied him for a moment before sitting on his knee. He wasn't quite sure exactly how it happened. If pressed, he would have asked for three or four hundred pages to write a description of the series of impossibly graceful bendings and movements that ended with her perched there with one hand on his shoulder. He didn't understand - and he was sure that it defied physics - how Caroline could be so light on that tiny patch of his legs, and yet so weighty in the way her presence affected him. Her gaze, for instance, probably clocked in at about fifty or sixty tons, to judge from the effect it was having on him. He never wanted to move. Never, ever, ever. Let the heat death of the universe come along and he'd be quite happy to still have Caroline Hepworth sitting just like that, on his knee, looking at him without speaking. The tiny light of the shaded lantern was irrelevant. He saw everything, as if it were the brightest of middays. It was so perfect, so hoped for, that Aubrey knew it couldn't last. He glanced around. 'What are you doing?' Caroline asked very, very softly. 'Looking for whoever is going to interrupt us.' 'That's a pessimistic outlook.' 'Wars, especially, have a habit of ignoring the lives of people.' 'If you follow that through, it suggests living for the moment is best.' 'Live without planning? Without dreams? That sounds rather limited.' 'And that sounds rather like Aubrey.

So tell me about van living,” I say, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. I’d preprepared the question. Asking questions is a tactic I use when small talk is required—it makes you appear interested while simultaneously putting all the effort of the conversation on the other party. “What do you like about it?” Wally is lying on the blanket, resting on one elbow. “Many things,” he says. “I find the small space cozy, like sleeping in a little cocoon. When it rains, I hear it pelting the roof; when it’s windy, I feel the wind up against the car. It’s like I’m out in it … but protected. What else? I like that I can’t have too many possessions, so when I do buy something, I have to consider whether I really need it. It means I only end up with things that are incredibly useful or very precious. I like that I’m not imprisoned by anything. Debt. Weather. Bad neighbors. My home is wherever I am.

into my room. *   *   * The last time I had sex was the night I left my husband. I packed my bags while he was at work and loaded most of them into the car. The furniture, the mementos, everything except my clothes was his to keep—where I was going, I wouldn’t need them. Then I waited in the hallway, sitting on a suitcase. Aiden arrived home at the usual time. The door jammed on my suitcase as he flicked on the light. “Hey,” he said, “what are you doing?” “Leaving you,” I said. Aiden continued hooking his coat on the hall tree. “Oh yeah?” “Mmm-hmm,” I said. “You seem to be taking it well.” He turned, taking in my suitcase and somber expression. “You’re … serious?” I’d never threatened to leave him before, but we had a certain way of talking, a light way, that made everything seem like a joke. As I held his gaze and nodded, realization dawned. “Shit, Anna.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I know we have problems but—” “I have Alzheimer