Quotes by Maureen Johnson

People cant really sympathize with you properly when youve woken them up

You cant curl up on the sofa and deny life forever. Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal-position or was I going to woman up?

People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened.

I felt so alone on that train... a weird, unnatural kind of alone that bore into me. It was feeling just beyond fear and somewhere to the left of sadness.

I’d love to be a tabletop in Paris, where food is art and life combined in one, where people gather and talk for hours. I want lovers to meet over me. I’d want to be covered in drops of candle wax and breadcrumbs and rings from the bottom of wineglasses. I would never be lonely, and I would always serve a good purpose.

I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.

It was as if the news itself wanted to reassure me. Even Jack the Ripper himself had reappeared as part of the greeting committee.

It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weakness

i get a little romantic about the old Empire State. Just looking at it makes me want to play some Frank Sinatra tunes and sway a little. I have a crush on a building. Id been in there several times but never to work. I always knew there were offices in there but the face never penetrated, really. You dont work in the Empire State Building. You propose in the Empire State Building. You sneak a flask up there and raise a toast to the whole city of New York.

Did you ask people to crime scenes on dates?

I sleep better knowing that a naked cork-eater is not sneaking around at night, stealing my underwear.

This is England, he explained. Tell someone its a procedure, and theyll believe you. The pointless procedure is one of our great natural resources.

I knew it was beautiful, but knowing something is beautiful and caring about it are two very different things, and I didnt care.

Irony is the word I forget the meaning of immediately after I look it up, but I kind of feel like I live in a constant state of it.

Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up? I went into fetal position on the bed to think about this. Fetal position turned out to be very comfortable.

I know no one is perfect, that behind every facade of perfection is a writhing mess of subterfuge and secret sorrows... but even taking that into account, Noah was pretty much perfect.

Lecturing Brooks was as useful as lecturing a cat.

Sometimes people graduate but they dont leave. They hang around for years, for no reason. I would think of ghosts like that, I decided.

The English play hockey in any weather. Thunder, lightening, plague of locusts...nothing can stop the hockey. Do not fight the hockey, for the hockey will win.

I dont know if there is actually more rain here in England, or if it was just that the rain seemed to be so deliberately annoying. Every drop hit the window with a peevish Am I bothering you? Does this make you cold and wet? Oh, sorry.