Beth O'Leary Quotes

We're so overdressed for a daytime event about crochet.

I'm just conveying the brutality of the market to you, Katherin,' I say. That's one of my favourite lines. Good old market, always there to be blamed. "The people don't want history in their crochet books. They want cute pictures and easy instructions.

Look,' he says, 'have you ever looked forward to reading a book so much you can't actually start it?'
'Oh totally. All the time - if I had a grain of self-restraint I never would've been able to read the last Harry Potter book. The anticipation was painful. You know like what if it does live up to the last ones? What if it's not what I hope it'll be?

Holly couldn't sleep; we played checkers. She lifts her fingers and dances them over the board like she's weaving a magic spell before she touches a counter. Apparently it's a mind game - makes the other player watch where you're going instead of planning their next move. Where did a seven-year old learn mind games?

Make mental note to listen to voicemail and change ringtone to something less embarrassing (this one is called 'Jive' and is far too funky for hospice setting. Not that funk does not have role in place of sickness, just that is not always appropriate).

You do waste an awful lot of time when you're young.

People struggle to see it's not about whether she's going to die - palliative care isn't just a place you go to slowly slip away. More people live and leave than die on our wards. It is about being comfortable for the duration of something necessary and painful. Making bad times easier.

I hand her the coffee. She gives it a sip, then nods in approval. I do a little fist pump, officially becoming a less odious human being than the man who wants to build a wall between Mexico and the US.

The next thing I notice is the sheer quantity of crap in my living room...It's like a terrible episode of Changing Rooms. Flat has been redecorated to look immeasurably worse. Can only conclude that she was doing it on purpose - nobody could be this tasteless accidentally.

I wake with a jolt that sends a shock of pain through my ankle. Crying out, I look around me. Floral wallpaper. Am I at home? Who's that man in the chair by the door, reading .... "Twilight?" Leon blinks at me, putting the book down in his lap. 'You went from unconscious to judgemental very quickly there.

It was a weird way to get to know Leon, writing all these notes over the last few months, and it sort of happened without me noticing - one minute I was scribbling him a quick note about leftovers, the next I was in a full-on, day-to-day correspondence.

Remind myself that there is no saving of people - people can only save themselves. The best you can do is help when they're ready.

It was never home until you were there, Tiffy.

Gerty is a superb human being in the least obvious way.

Who'd have thought -- you say something true enough times, you try hard enough, and maybe it sinks in.

This is the bit where we turn on the telly and a nuclear war has started," I say, twisting to lie down next to him.

He smiles. "I don't think so. Doesn't work that way. Sometimes the happy thing just happens.

The sudden rememberings are striking at entirely random times now, just bobbing up out of nowhere and sending me absolutely reeling.