Quotes by Tana French

Ive always loved strong women, which is lucky for me because once youre over about twenty-five there is no other kind. Women blow my mind. The stuff that routinely gets done to them would make most men curl up and die, but women turn to steel and keep on coming. Any man who claims hes not into strong women is fooling himself mindless; hes into strong women who know how to pout prettily and put on baby voices, and who will end up keeping his balls in her makeup bags.

I am not good at noticing when Im happy, except in retrospect.

What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie.

We had no one else to learn this from- none of our parents were shining examples of relationship success- so we learned this from each other: when someone you love needs you to, you can get a hold of your five-alarm temper, get a hold of the shapeless things that scare you senseless, act like an adult instead of the Cro-Magnon teenager you are, you can do a million things you never saw coming.

Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it.

My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.

Now death is uncool, old-fashioned. To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever we would like them to be that it comes as a profound outrage to encounter death, stubbornly unspinnable, only and immutably itself.

We think of mortality so little these days...I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,As you are now so once was I:As I am so will you be...

To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever we would like them to be that it comes as a profound outrage to encounter death, stubbornly unspinnable, only and immutably itself.

People need a moral code, to help them make decisions. All this bio-yogurt virtue and financial self-righteousness are just filling the gap in the market. But the problem is that its all backwards. Its not that you do the right thing and hope it pays off; the morally right thing is by definition the thing that gives the biggest payoff.

I dont do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, youre already halfway down.

I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldnt find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself.

That kind of friendship doesnt just materialize at the end of the rainbow one morning in a soft-focus Hollywood haze. For it to last this long, and at such close quarters, some serious work had gone into it. Ask any ice-skater or ballet dancer or show jumper, anyone who lives by beautiful moving things: nothing takes as much work as effortlessness.

It always took my breath away,’ he said, ‘that the five of us could have found one another–against such odds, through all the layers of armored fortifications each of us had set up… Do you see now why I believe in miracles? I used to imagine time folding over, the shades of our future selves slipping back to the crucial moments to tap each of us on the shoulder and whisper: Look, there, look! That man, that woman: they’re for you; that’s your life, your future, fidgeting in that line, dripping on the carpet, shuffling in that doorway. Don’t miss it.

So what are you thinking? I asked. I meant about the case, obviously, but Cassie was in a giddy mood--she generates more energy than most people, and shed been sitting indoors most of the day. Will you listen to him? A woman asking a guy what hes thinking is the ultimate crime, shes clingy and needy and he runs a mile, but when its the other-- Behave yourself, I said, pulling her hood over her face. Help! Im being oppressed! she yelled through it. Call the Equality Commission. The stroller girl gave us a sour look. Youre overexcited, I told Cassie. Calm down or Ill take you home with no ice cream.

She [88yo Mrs Fitzgerald] crossed herself and patted my arm. And youre after coming all the way from England to find out who done it? Arent you great? God bless you, young fella. The old heretic, I said, when we got outside. Mrs. Fitzgerald had cheered up my day immensely. I hope I have that much zip when Im eighty-eight

We were still at the age when girls are years older than guy, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to.

Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyones nose, but if a girls got brains and looks and personality, shes going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Like, okay. Everyone in history thought they were the ones who finally knew everything. In their naissance, right, they were positive they knew exactly how the universe worked. Til the next set of guys came along and proved they were missing like a hundred important things. and then that set of guys were sure they had it all down, til another set came along and showed them parts they were missing. He glances at Julia, checking if shes laughing at him, which she isnt, and if shes listening, which she is, completely. So. he says, its pretty unlikely, mathematically, that we are living in the one single era that has everything figured out. Which means theres a decent possibility that the reason we cant explain how ghosts and stuff could exist is because we havent figured it out yet, not because they dont. And it is pretty arrogant of us to think it definitely has to be the other way around.