Gilly Macmillan Quotes

Seize the day - be brave - be independent - be thoughtful - don't be scared to make mistakes - keep learning - all those things, all the time

Outside, I take in the fact that the night is deeply dusky and warm, and that feels like a balm after the cold air inside. I notice a strong smell from the glowing white roses that hang over the churchyard gate and the dark fluttering of bats that swarm from a high corner of the church tower. Around us, as we walk in the tired grass, gravestones whose cadaverous foundations have failed them lean against one another for support. I see a Celtic cross, the contours of lichen covered stone mounds, writing everywhere, words of remembrance, and, above us, the dark, pointed leaves of the yew tree greedily sucking away the last of the light.

Sometimes it's hard not to let other people's misery seep into your own bones.

If you talk too openly about terrible things people shrink from you.

If we're not who we imagine we are, then is anybody else? If there's so much potential for others to judge us wrongly, then how can we be sure that our assessment of them in any way resembles the real person that lies underneath?

Trust is like that. Once you lose it, you begin to adjust your attitudes toward people, you put up guards, and filter the information you want them to know.

They saw me as a freak show. I frightened people because I was someone to whom the worst was happening, and they turned on me like a pack of dogs. I've

I wish now that I'd valued more the words that tumbled freely out of him before he was taken. I wish I'd collected them and kept them safely in packages that I wrapped up carefully, secured with a ribbon, and stored in a safe place for the future. I wish I hadn't been too distracted to listen to every word he said.

I asked her if she was happy with it, she said yes. I thought she'd cope fine. I didn't have a crystal ball, boss'.
'You're not going to have any fucking balls if you carry on like this. I'll chop them off personally and use them as Christmas decorations for the girls' lavvy.

and dangerous depths of the labyrinth that was her depression. It had prevented her from slipping

don't want to hurt anybody, but I'm desperate to distract Dad and Becky, to stop the thing that's happening.

But here's the thing; none of us deserve anything. That's an illusion we all exist under

inside the house, a silence deeper than any I'd ever experienced before. A void where everything that I'd ever lived for should have been.

In the eyes of others, we're often not who we imagine ourselves to be.

Grace has such simple needs. Wake, give love, receive love, refuel, expend energy, sleep. I love that about her.

Carpe diem was the lesson to be learned. It's what I had been trying to teach Ben when I let him run ahead in the woods. Seize the day - be brave - be independent - be thoughtful - don't be scared to make mistakes - keep learning - all of those things, all the time. And somebody had taken him. More fool me. Ruth's

be whispered more now, only spoken of in hushed terms, because Lucas Grantham might

made some references to these sources within this book, What She Knew is entirely a work of fiction and all quotes and references are used fictitiously.