Sarra Manning Quotes

My whole life had split in two: Smith and not Smith. I liked the Smith parts of it so much better.
~ Sarra Manning

The thing about love was that it caught you unawares, turned up in the most unexpected places, even when you weren't looking for it. ~ Sarra Manning

Adorkable is a freeform, loose-knit, organic network of like-minded souls who might get pushed to the ground for the way we think and the way we look and because we're not afraid of who we are, but my God we're looking up at the stars. ~ Sarra Manning

We're broken. It's like we have all these jagged edges that scare other people off, but when we're with each other, our jagged edges fit together and we're almost whole. ~ Sarra Manning

The Ad♥rkable Manifesto

1. We have nothing to declare but our dorkiness.
2. Jumble sales are our shopping malls.
3. Better to make cookies than be a cookie-cutter.
4. Suffering doesn't necessarily improve you but it does give you something to blog about.
5. Experiment with Photoshop, hair dye, nail polish and cupcake flavours but never drugs.
6. Don't follow leaders, be one.
7. Necessity is the mother of customisation.
8. Puppies make everything better.
9. Quiet girls rarely make history.
10. Never shield your oddness, but wear your oddness like a shield. ~ Sarra Manning

I realised something else tonight. Something about pancakes.'

'What about them?'

'We both got so obsessed about that first pancake being thrown away that we forgot something really important,' Max explained. 'That first pancake tastes just as good as all the other ones. It's not its fault that it was first in line and the pan wasn't hot enough so it got a bit lumpy and misshapen.'

'And when you're really famished that first pancake tastes better than all the ones that come after it,' Neve said, and then she couldn't wait any longer. Her arms were around Max before she'd even finished forming the thought, but his arms were around her too in that exact same moment.

Just having him there to hold, warm and solid and real, was enough for five seconds, and then she was peppering his face with kisses – his forehead, his eyebrows, the tip of his crooked nose, along his cheekbones until she reached the glittering prize of his mouth.

Sometimes Neve thought that her appetite was the most robust thing about her, and she didn't kiss Max so much as she devoured him. Graceless, messy kisses without any thought or reason, but simply because she hungered for him. Kissed him with everything she had and everything she was, and she didn't know why she could kiss Max and have him kiss her back with the same fierceness but still be greedy for the next kiss and the one after that and the one after that and the one… ~ Sarra Manning

People don't want you to be yourself, they just want you to be the person that they've decided you should be. ~ Sarra Manning

I was a heartless, ungrateful wench of a girl who promised everyone who came into contact with me a one-way ticket to pain and hurt. I didn't know how to love and I didn't deserve to be loved back. ~ Sarra Manning

You're in my light and this is my special spot so go away. ~ Sarra Manning

Mostly she just missed Vaughn. Missed all those quiet, unspectacular moments that, when added up, showed how entwined their lives had become. And right now, she missed being able to phone him, because it would be so easy to tap in the eleven digits that would put his voice on the line. 'Grace, about bloody time,' he'd say, and make it sound like an endearment.

But she couldn't call Vaughn, because she'd left him. Which was a novelty, until Grace remembered that he'd have left her eventually if she hadn't done it first. She was never the one. She was never even the one before the one. She was the girl who seemed like a good idea at the time, but ultimately was just a phase that people went through.

That was the way it had always been. Friends and lovers came and went because there was something about her which repelled them, and she didn't have a clue what it was. It was a mystery that she couldn't solve on her own, and there wasn't a single person in the world who could help . . . ~ Sarra Manning

What she lacks in poetry she makes up for in venom ~ Sarra Manning

You are bad and mean and I'm going to spit on your cupcakes. ~ Sarra Manning

You took out a book on blow-job technique from the British Library? They shouldn't have books like that in there! ~ Sarra Manning

It would be like Cinderella moaning about getting blisters from her glass slippers. ~ Sarra Manning

It was just she was so full of bullshit and someone needed to call her on it and ... and ... she reacted so beautifully. ~ Sarra Manning

Like that whole Nicole Richie look was SO over ~ Sarra Manning

Getting money from my dad is a finesse job. Luckily, I have finesse coming out of my arse. I barged into his study without knocking, marched across to his desk, and held out my hand. "Give me twenty pounds," I snapped. "I need twenty pounds. Give it to me. Now! ~ Sarra Manning

Ari had discovered a contraband Barbie bangle in her weekend case and had gone on an hour's rant that contained words like 'body fascism' and 'third-wave feminism', then made Ellie write out fifty times, 'Barbie is a toxic plastic tool of a patriarchal culture. ~ Sarra Manning

I'd always thought that my awkwardness was a thin veil disguising the real me. The me that was funny and could write songs that touched people. The me that would one day find some beautiful, intelligent boy who'd recognize me as his soul mate. The me who was secretly pretty and stylish if only someone would lift the veil and see. But I was beginning to suspect that underneath the awkwardness there was just more awkwardness and not much else. And that would explain why I stood in a room full of people and felt like the loneliest girl in the world. ~ Sarra Manning

That was the worst thing about having a relationship with someone, even a pretend relationship. You opened up, let someone in, and when it was over, they had all the ammunition they needed to completely destroy you. ~ Sarra Manning

The only people who spoke to her were Jimmy Vaughn, who was sweet when he wasn't wasted, though he was wasted all the time ... ~ Sarra Manning

I was rolling my eyes so hard that I was sure one of my retinas had just detached itself ~ Sarra Manning

He didn't say anything and I thought I'd shocked him, because I tend to do that. Not just with Michael but with pretty much anyone who can't deal with being honest and admitting that you have wants and needs and desires and all those other fun things. ~ Sarra Manning

How is dear Charlotte?' Celia asked sweetly, then launched into an account of how they'd been having their usual 'Fucking shut up', 'No, you fucking shut up', row a couple of evenings ago, when Yuri had opened the front door of their flat to scream up the stairs, 'Why don't both of you fucking shut up? ~ Sarra Manning

So, you know what? I'm not ready to write Gen Y off just yet and neither should you, because I think we're going to grow up just fine. Yeah, it pains me to admit it, but the kids are all right. ~ Sarra Manning

Was there a better sound in the world than a champagne cork popping? Hell, no. ~ Sarra Manning

He was old-fashioned looking, Grace decided. Not just the suit, which made him look as though he should be taking the air in one of those fifties movies on the French Riviera, but as if he was the second male lead in one of those same films. Not matinee-idol handsome enough to get the girl, but good enough to be the best friend of the one who got the girl. Or the arch nemesis of the one who got the girl who had his comeuppance ten minutes before the credits began to roll. ~ Sarra Manning

And suddenly I got what the big deal was about kissing. How someone could suck on your bottom lip and make you come completely undone. That someone stroking the hair back from your face could make you swoon and someone sliding his hands underneath your top could make you feel wanted for the first time in your life. ~ Sarra Manning

I'm going that way too. I live in Crouch End. Do you want to share a black cab?'
Black cabs were an extravagance that Neve couldn't afford, not this far away from payday, but that wasn't the reason why she declined. 'No,
thank you. I'm perfectly all right with catching the tube.'
'OK, tube it is,' Max agreed, because he was quite obviously emotionally tone deaf and couldn't sense the huge 'kindly bugger off' vibes that
Neve was sure she was emitting. 'You're still mad at me, aren't you?'
'You apologised, why would I still be mad at you?'
'One day we'll laugh about this. When little Tommy asks how we met, I'll say, "Well, son, I threw an ice cube at your mother, then slapped her
arse, and we've been inseparable ever since. ~ Sarra Manning

Something diseased and furry had crawled into her mouth and expired while she slept. That was the only possible explanation as to why Neve had a rancid taste in her mouth and a heavy, viscous paste coating her teeth and tongue.

'I think I'm dying,' she groaned. The wretched state of her mouth was the least of it. There was a pounding in her head, echoed in the roiling of her gut, and her bones ached, her vital organs ached, her throat ached, even her hair follicles ached.

'You're not dying,' said a voice in her ear, which sounded like nails scraping down a blackboard, even though Max's voice had barely risen above a whisper. 'You've got a hangover.'

Neve had had hangovers before and they just made her feel a tiny bit nauseous and grouchy. This felt like the bastard child of bubonic plague and the ebola virus.

'Dying,' she reiterated, and now she realised that she was in bed, which had been a very comfy bed the last time she'd slept in it, but now it felt as if she was lying on a pile of rocks, and even though she had the quilt and Max's arm tucked around her, she was still cold and clammy. Neve tried to raise her head but her gaze collided with the stripy wallpaper and as well as searing her retinas, it was making her stomach heave. 'Sick. Going to be sick.'

'Sweetheart, I don't think so,' Max said, stroking the back of her neck with feather-soft fingers. 'You've already thrown up just about everything you've eaten in the ~ Sarra Manning

Sometimes it frightens me how much I enjoy behaving like a complete cow. ~ Sarra Manning

Neve: 'Have I told you how much I hate you lately?'
Celia: 'All the time and right back at you. ~ Sarra Manning

Secrets aren´t the same as lying. ~ Sarra Manning

So you don't fancy meeting up again?' Max persisted, though Neve didn't know why, because she thought she'd made her position perfectly clear. 'Swap war stories?'
'I don't have any war stories,' Neve said, and in that moment she felt that she never would. That every night would be spent creeping round her flat in her socks with the telly turned down so low that she could barely hear it, so in the end she'd have no other option but to escape into the pages of books where there were other girls falling in and out of love but not her. Never her. She stared down at the scuffed toes of her faux Ugg boots in sudden and tired defeat.
'If you don't have any war stories, then at least you don't have any war wounds,' Max said, so quietly that Neve had to strain her ears to catch his words. 'Take my number. ~ Sarra Manning

Because, when everything else is gone, all we're left with is our imaginations. ~ Sarra Manning

How strange that the years and ocean between us have brought us closer together. ~ Sarra Manning

There was only one way to get through the rest of the evening and it wasn't sober. ~ Sarra Manning

What you look like is just one part of who you are - but it's not all you are. ~ Sarra Manning

Stayed. I feel like life happens to other people, and I drift in and out of their lives without ever making any kind of impact. I want to matter to someone. ~ Sarra Manning

I smile. I smile all the time, but you're just not around to see it these days. ~ Sarra Manning

So, what did you want to watch?'

'Thought we might play a game instead,' he said, holding up a familiar dark green box. 'Found this on the bottom shelf of your DVD cupboard … if you tilt the glass, the champagne won't froth like that.'

Neve finished pouring champagne into the 50p champagne flutes she'd got from the discount store and waited until Max had drunk a good half of his in two swift swallows. 'The thing is, you might find it hard to believe but I can be very competitive and I have an astonishing vocabulary from years spent having no life and reading a lot – and well, if you play Scrabble with me, I'll totally kick your arse.'

Max was about to eat his first bite of molten mug cake but he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. 'You're gonna kick my arse?'

'Until it's black and blue and you won't be able to sit down for a week.' That sounded very arrogant. 'Really, Max, Mum stopped me from playing when I was thirteen after I got a score of four hundred and twenty-seven, and when I was at Oxford, I used to play with two Linguistics post-grads and an English don.'

'Well, my little pancake girlfriend, I played Scrabble against Carol Vorderman for a Guardian feature and I kicked her arse because Scrabble has got nothing to do with vocabulary; it's logic and tactics,' Max informed her loftily, taking a huge bite of the cake.

For a second, Neve hoped that it was as foul-tasting as she suspected just to get ~ Sarra Manning

Can we have a time-out on the self-criticism for the rest of the evening?"
"Not the rest of the evening. I can do about half an hour and then force of habit takes over. ~ Sarra Manning

...occasionally I can be quite evil, when there's no-one around to realise. ~ Sarra Manning

Vaughn folded his arms. 'The reason why you've lasted longer than most of your erstwhile colleagues is because you don't do drama. I don't like drama. I get enough drama at home. My wife could teach the RSC a few things about drama.'

For someone who claimed that he didn't do drama, Vaughn was one of the biggest drama queens she knew. ~ Sarra Manning

And being alone and being lonely were two different things but they felt exactly the same: they felt horrible. ~ Sarra Manning

It's so stupid how someone touching you - just their skin on your skin - can make you feel all sorts of things you don't want to feel. ~ Sarra Manning

Bitch is just a word that boys say when they don't have the power to hurt you any more. ~ Sarra Manning

Think of something to say. Keep him here. Something funny and interesting and cool.
"I put my wellies on because I was sure it was going to rain and now my feet are getting horribly moist," Ellie said, and it was the single worst thing she'd ever said to anyone. ~ Sarra Manning

She heard Piers give an excited little cry and someone gave an excited little cry in return, and Grace Vaughn appeared in the open doorway, laden down with garment bags.

For one fleeting moment, Ellie saw both husband and wife's faces light up before they resembled their usual expressions – a scowl and a pout respectively. ~ Sarra Manning

Secrets aren't the same as lying,' Vaughn commented, because they both had the muddiest of ethics, which was an odd thing to have in common. ~ Sarra Manning

One day you'll wake up and find that the pain's still there but it doesn't hurt quite so much. ~ Sarra Manning

I just couldn't understand how you could go from being alive, from having molecules and blood cells constantly shifting around inside you, and thought processes and a mind full of memories and dreams and love and hate, and in just one tiny second these miraculous things stop and you're dead. How could all that disappear? What happened to your soul, your essence, your wonder? Just because a muscle stops beating? It made absolutely no sense. ~ Sarra Manning

Happiness really isn't that hard to find. ~ Sarra Manning

No, the single most humiliating part of the whole fucking humiliating exercise in abject humiliation was that somewhere between then and now, Grace had actually thought Vaughn was a nice guy, ~ Sarra Manning

Brie! Do Beyonce or Christina or whichever lame MTV diva you're mostly admiring this week waste their time with what-ifs? No, they spend all their energy on looking fabulous and cutting down any bitch that dares get in their way.-Charlie ~ Sarra Manning

Despite their difference, because of their differences, they were a perfect mismatched set. Two sides of the same tarnished penny. ~ Sarra Manning

Immediately, I wanted to gather up everything I'd just said and stuff it back into my mouth. But once you've said stuff, you can't unsay it. Your words are out there, aren't they? Buzzing around in the quiet of the room so you can hear them echoing back at you... ~ Sarra Manning

I think Vaughn has Social Anxiety Disorder but he's too much of a control freak to give in to it. ~ Sarra Manning

Then what he said and how he said it won't be important any more. What will be important are all the things you never got to say. ~ Sarra Manning

I think sometimes she lies in bed at night and plots ways to make my life suck.
There can be no other explanation. ~ Sarra Manning

If Madonna loves me, then you will too. ~ Sarra Manning

Can this really call itself a cake when its main ingredients are cheese and carrots? ~ Sarra Manning

Just once, I'd like to find a boy. And I like him and he likes me. And we have a laugh and the kissing's really good and there's no-one getting in the way of the laughing and the kissing. Is that too much to ask? ~ Sarra Manning

Maybe relationships shouldn't be such hard work ... ~ Sarra Manning

That was the deal with the really good-looking boys: they automatically assumed you were pining and panting for them and wouldn't be satisfied until you'd had their babies, no matter how ugly their personalities might be. ~ Sarra Manning

...my awkward silence default setting kicked in. ~ Sarra Manning

But please eat at the table and use a coaster. ~ Sarra Manning

People were so scared of telling the truth because the truth was chaotic and complicated and decidedly uncool, but uncool was the way I rolled. Or it would be if I used tired old phrases like 'That's the way I roll', which I so don't. ~ Sarra Manning

We don't stop, not even when we reach the finish line. It's a journey for life, Neve. ~ Sarra Manning

Dorkdom isn't something you can choose. It's something you are. But instead of dividing the world up into dorkside and darkside, I've realised that we all have a little bit of dork inside us. ~ Sarra Manning

But I had to admit that maybe the reason I'd had a meltdown wasn't just about the shower. I think the shower door was, like, a metaphor. It represented everything that was bad. ~ Sarra Manning

But really it says everything that's wrong about the publishing industry, that a quarter of a million people bought and read a sex and shopping novel that wasn't even written by one of those footballer girlfriends, and yet most of the shortlisted titles on the Orange Prize, which is an award for women writers, don't even sell ten thousand copies. It's just not right. ~ Sarra Manning

Max didn't take his hands off her. As they walked to where he'd parked the hired car, he kept his arm round her shoulders, even though he was carrying her cases in his other hand and they kept bumping him. ~ Sarra Manning

It wasn't like I'd woken up and decided to be a bitch, it was more like I'd woken up to find bitchiness thrust upon me. ~ Sarra Manning

Then May gave way to June, and it felt as if time was slipping through her fingers. ~ Sarra Manning

What the hell was an acquisitions consultant? An arms dealer? A white slave trader? ~ Sarra Manning

We have to try really hard to not accidentally summon a demon. ~ Peyton Manning

I was dissatisfied with the status quo back in the 80's, particularly how the West was represented in federation. I wanted to try to change it. ~ Preston Manning

For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened," He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love. ~ Brennan Manning

I summoned my most convincing smile, the one that seemed to work on Kristen, and I walked up to the counter.

The middle-aged nurse manning the station looked up, eyed my firefighter badge, and gave me a warm grin. "Well, hello. What can I do for you, young man?"

I was grateful for my profession at the moment. Nobody was ever unhappy to see a fireman. ~ Abby Jimenez

...we have to be aware of the power and importance of organizing not just around identity, but the materiality of daily life, which still, in many respects, is racialized for people of color. You build from that, but you have a grander social vision that transcends it and recognizes the strengths and limitations that are drawn from the particularity of identity. ~ Manning Marable

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust - not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God. ~ Brennan Manning

This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all. ~ Brennan Manning

Andrew Luck, if he gets to his first Super Bowl and he wins that Super Bowl, that means he won on the road every game except for that first playoff game. He went and beat Peyton Manning ... Then that means he went and beat Tom Brady ... Then he would either have to beat Aaron Rodgers or the Seattle Seahawks. That's a pretty tough hill to climb. If he does that, he's just solidified himself in that conversation as an elite quarterback. ~ Charles Woodson

The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi. ~ Brennan Manning

Praise consists in the love of God, in wonder at the goodness of God, in recognition of the gifts of God, in seeing God in all things He gives us, ay, and even in the things that He refuses to us; so as to see our whole life in the light of God; and seeing this, to bless Him, adore Him, and glorify Him. ~ Henry Edward Manning

Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is the heartbeat of the gospel, joyful liberation from fear of the Final Outcome, a summons to self-acceptance, and freedom for a life of compassion toward others. ~ Brennan Manning

Maiha
"Allow me to introduce you to the Children of Mars. On lead guitar and eight barreled Calliope Gatlin, Colonel Fujiyama. On bass and manning the double-barreled thirty millimeter PPC's we have Major Howard. Singing backup and key boards we have Fight Captain Benz with a lovely ten millimeter rapid fire gauss rifle. Her lovely partner Captain Martin on drums with her ten millimeter Hell-bore pulse laser rifle. And singing lead and front man, a true artist with a bang from the Castile sniper rifle, our Big Daddy, Papa of Death and Destruction, the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend, Lord James Nakatoma- Bailey." When I finished Alice was giggling out loud. ~ Jessie Wolf

Prayer is first and foremost an act of love ~ Brennan Manning

I was never on a mission to be an NFL quarterback. I wanted to be a good high school player, and I worked hard at that. That made me good enough to play in college and then I wanted to be a good college quarterback. During college I played well enough to make it into the NFL. I never took it for granted and really wanted to play hard at each level and I have always had a lot of fun doing what I wanted to do. ~ Peyton Manning

Coaches have the worst hours in the world. They go home maybe twice a week. They're sleeping in their office. They're watching film. It's a brutal, brutal job and that's why I respect them so much. ~ Eli Manning

It's just different in the music world. You come more with an entourage. ~ Taryn Manning

The sense of belonging together had been deeper than love. ~ Olivia Manning

Choose a single, sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God. A word such as Jesus, Abba, Peace, God or a phrase such as "Abba, I belong to you." ... Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often. ~ Brennan Manning

When you go through a significant injury and have a major career change, you truly do go one year at a time, and you don't look past what's going on now, because you are not sure what's going to happen. Tomorrow is not promised. ~ Peyton Manning

In fall 1967, I was given leave of absence by the National Public Affairs Research Foundation to move to Redondo Beach, California, to work on a short-term research contract with TRW. ~ Preston Manning

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge.
Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become. ~ Brennan Manning

The Good News of the gospel of grace cries out: We are all, equally, privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God's mercy! ~ Brennan Manning

The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle. ~ Brennan Manning

Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to 'a moral choice.' His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free. ~ John Pilger