04UndatedShe felt hot liquid anger suddenly cool and harden into something powerful and immovable.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
05UndatedWhat are you babbling on about, woman?" sighed Chloe. She'd picked this phrase up from her father and imitated his weary tone perfectly. They'd made the mistake of laughing the first time she did it, so she'd kept it up, and said it just often enough, and with perfect timing, so that they couldn't help but keep laughing.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
06UndatedWhy did they all have to tread so very delicately around Celeste's money? It was like wealth was an embarrassing medical condition. It was the same with Celeste's beauty. Strangers gave Celeste the same furtive looks they gave to people with missing limbs, and if Madeline ever mentioned Celeste's looks, Celeste responded with something like shame. "Shhh," she'd say, looking around fearfully in case someone overheard. Everyone wanted to be rich and beautiful, but the truly rich and beautiful had to pretend they were just the same as everyone else. Oh, it was a funny old world.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
07UndatedIn those years when their mother disappeared into herself, and old Mrs Jeffrey next door turned into Frannie, their honorary grandmother, Alice also taught herself how to change light bulbs, fix running toilets and cook chops and veggies while Elisabeth learned how to demand refunds, pay bills, fill in forms and talk to strangers.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
08UndatedShe was busy thinking about the concept of forgiveness. It was such a lovely, generous idea when it wasn't linked to something awful that needed forgiving.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
09UndatedI didn't have enough other people in my life to cover the loss of this many people at once. I didn't have spare aunties or cousins or grandparents. I didn't have backup. I didn't have insurance to cover a loss like this.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
10UndatedOnly a man could come up with something so ruthless, so essentially stupid and yet brutally effective.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
11UndatedAs seductive as it might have been to erase the grief and pain of the last ten years, it was also a lie. Young Alice was a fool. A sweet, innocent fool. Young Alice hadn't experienced ten years of living.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
12UndatedI remember thinking about how mothers were prepared to run into burning buildings to save their children's lives. I thought I should be able to go through a bit more suffering, a bit more inconvenience to give my children life. It made me feel noble. But now I realize I'm a crazy woman running into a burning house for children who don't exist.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
14UndatedShe wanted to hug him and at the same time she kind of wanted to slap him.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
15UndatedIf parents had children who were good sleepers, they assumed this was due to their good parenting, not good luck. They followed the rules, and the rules had been proven to work. Celeste must therefore not be following the rules. And you could never prove it to them! They would die smug in their beds.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
16UndatedHelicopter parents. Before I started at Pirriwee Public, I thought it was an exaggeration, this thing about parents being overly involved with their kids. I mean, my mum and dad loved me, they were, like, interested in me when I was growing up in the nineties, but they weren't, like, obsessed with me.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
17UndatedWhen someone you loved was depending on your lie, it was perfectly easy.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
18UndatedIf her mother had been observing this interaction, she'd tell Clementine she was wrong, that she needed to keep talking, to say everything that was on her mind, to communicate, to leave no possibility for misinterpretation.If her father were here, he'd put his finger to his lips and say, "Shh."Clementine settled for two words."I'm sorry," she said.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
19UndatedIt seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip off down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; because how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or tritest of fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you’d shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
20UndatedPolly had arrived in the world outraged to discover that her sisters had gotten there before her.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
21UndatedThen he kissed her so deeply and so completely that she felt like she was falling, floating, spiraling down, down, down, like Alice in Wonderland.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
22UndatedSo now I just assume that it won't work, and that if it does work, I'll lose it anyway. This is meant to protect me, although it doesn't, because somehow the hope sneakily finds its way in. I'm never aware of the hope until it's gone, whooshed away like a rug pulled from under my feet, each time I hear another "I'm sorry.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
23UndatedGreat. Now Renata would have even more reason to dislike her. Jane would have an enemy. The last time she had had anything close to an enemy, she was in primary school herself. It had never crossed her mind that sending your child to school would be like going back to school yourself.Liane Moriarty / quote ↗
