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The collection / 116 fragments

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04c. 1981 AD
Imagine you had a friend who was there for you all the time and you were there for them, but they stopped being there for you as much as they used to which you can understand a little because people have things to do, but then they’re around less and less no matter how much you try to reach out to them. Then suddenly one day - nothing - they’re gone. Just like that. Then you write to them, and you’re ignored, and then you write to them again and you’re ignored and finally you write to them for a third time and they barely even want to make the appointment, they’re so busy with their job, their friends and their car. How would you feel?
Cecelia Ahern / quote
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07c. 1981 AD
A funeral is like a little game, really. You have to just play along and say the right thing and behave the right way until it’s over. Be pleasant but don’t smile too much; be sad but don’t overdo it or the family will feel worse than they already do. Be hopeful but don’t let your optimism be taken as a lack of empathy or an inability to deal with the reality. Because if anybody was to be truly honest there would be a lot of arguments, finger-pointing, tears, snot, and screaming.
Cecelia Ahern / quote
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09c. 1981 AD
Instead, I read books in the library, huddling on a bean bag in a corner and getting lost in somebody else's victories and troubles. I never had much time for fiction before. I preferred real life. Mathematics. Solutions. Things that actually have a bearing on my life. But I can understand now why people read, why they like to get lost in somebody else's life. Sometimes I'll read a sentence and it will make me sit up, jolt me, because it is something that I have recently felt but never said out loud. I want to reach into the page and tell the characters that I understand them, that they are not alone, that I'm not alone, that it's okay to feel like this. And then the lunch bell rings the book closes and I'm plunged back into reality.
Cecelia Ahern / quote
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13c. 1981 AD
So how long have you been together? Two months?''Five.''Five? Jesus, Steve, you might as well get married. I should buy a hat.''Don't. They give away your Spock ears.'She laughed. 'This is the Romanian girl?''Croatian.''Right. She's a painter?''Photographer.''Right.' She studied him.'What?' he laughed self-consciously as though he was a twelve-year-old boy who'd just been caught with his first girlfriend.'Nothing.''Come on.''I don't know Steve,' she cut into her meat, 'you've changed. You no longer write about Victoria Beckham and you have a girlfriend. I think...''You think what?''I don't know, I might be jumping the gun here, but I think there's a possibility you might not be gay after all.'A chip was hurled at her head.
Cecelia Ahern / quote
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17c. 1981 AD
There was nothing wrong with having an expensive home, nothing wrong at all. There’s a pride in building something up, working hard to achieve something. But it shouldn’t have been his manhood that increased with each new success, it should have been his heart. His success was like the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ fairy tale: it fed him for all the wrong reasons, fattening him in all the wrong places. Dad deserved his success, he just needed a masterclass in humility. I could have done with one too. How special I thought I was in the silver Aston Martin in which he drove me to school some mornings. How special am I now, now that somebody bought it from a depot of reprocessed cars, for a fraction of the price. How special indeed
Cecelia Ahern / quote
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