Jenny Colgan Quotes & Sayings

nothing that seemed to have anything to do with what she'd done her entire life, the only job she wanted: finding the right book for the right person. She — Jenny Colgan

Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days. Now, — Jenny Colgan

The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things. — Jenny Colgan

I am of the old-fashioned conviction that reading is a pleasure to be carefully guarded at all times — Jenny Colgan

That thing that everyone talks about. That really big newspaper in the sky that came along and ruined everything else, blah blah blah.'
Rosie was stumped, until light finally dawned. 'You mean the internet?'
'Well, yes. I hate that thing.'
'The whole thing?'
'Yes.'
'You hate the entire internet?'
'Yes. — Jenny Colgan

Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can't fix anything. And your life might turn out full of regrets. — Jenny Colgan

Helping to match people to the book that would change their life, or make them fall in love, or get over a love affair gone wrong. And for the children, she could show them where to dive into a crocodile-infested river, or fly through the stars, or open the door of a wardrobe... — Jenny Colgan

Christmas, as a practicing Catholic child, was seen as a reward for lots and lots and lots of church. — Jenny Colgan

I want to go to the party!'
'I said no.'
'I've been totally good.'
'You shot me with an arrow. — Jenny Colgan

That didn't sound much like a date, Rosie thought. Useful wasn't a word you used about a date. It was a word you used about a stapler. — Jenny Colgan

She's home. That's all. That's true love, I can't explain it any better than that. — Jenny Colgan

She is resisting the Internet idea...because she doesn't want to one day tell her children that she posted an ad on the Internet, interviewed twenty-five hopeful candidates, and finally their father turned up and looked good in comparison with the rest of them. It just doesn't seem right. — Jenny Colgan

The way my luck is at the moment," said Polly, "I probably will get a tiny bit of money back, and as I leave the bank after picking it up, a bolt of lightning will come out of the sky and set it on fire. Then a piano will fall on my head and knock me down a manhole. — Jenny Colgan

All the real blokes I know are obsessed with cars and have started doing cycling at the weekend and being really, really boring about it and banging on about their Fitbits and growing stupid beards and talking about being on Tinder. That's what all the 'real men' are like these days! — Jenny Colgan

armed with the Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy as well as the entire Outlander series to sink into on the journey. It — Jenny Colgan

The look you get when you're reading in your van, and your feet are up and you sit so still, and your face is alight, and I don't know where you are; you could be anywhere, so far away, off in a part of your mind I'll never get to . . . It drives me crazy. The way you just came here, just got up, changed your entire life . . . I mean, my family's been here for four generations. It would never have occurred to me to do what you did, just to start over and do something different. Amazing. — Jenny Colgan

Baking is ... Life. So when you describe what you're making, you must describe life. Do you see? It's not just recipes.. — Jenny Colgan

There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew - apart from, sometimes, music - to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds. — Jenny Colgan

I never understand," he said, shaking his head, "why anyone would go to the trouble of making up new people in this world when there's already billions of the buggers I don't give a shit about. — Jenny Colgan

Dear ignoramuses,
Halloween is not 'a yankee holiday' celebrated only by gigantic toddlers wearing baseball caps back to front and spraying 'automobiles' with eggs. This is ignorance.
Halloween is an ancient druidic holiday, one the Celtic peoples have celebrated for millennia. It is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the souls of the departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap. What could be more thrilling and worthy of celebration than that? It is a time to celebrate sweet bounty, as the harvest is brought in. It is a time of excitement and pleasure for children before the dark sets in. We should all celebrate that.
Pinatas on the other hand are heathen monstrosities and have no place in a civilised society. — Jenny Colgan

Turkish Delight
Turkish delight has had a bad reputation since that man C.S.Lewis - a positive genius in other ways - linked it for ever with one of the most terrifying creations in literature, the White Witch of Narnia, and that naughty, sticky, traitorous Edmund. But with the sensuous pleasure imbued in its melting, gelatinous texture, and, when made in the proper way, delicately perfumed with rose petals, flavoured with oils and dusted with sugar, it reclaims its power as a sweet as seductive as Arabian nights. The fact that it now carries with it a whiff of danger merely adds to its pleasure. It is not, truly, a sweet for children. They simply complain, and get the almonds stuck up their noses, — Jenny Colgan

I think love is caramel. Sweet and fragant; always welcome. It is the gentle golden colour of a setting harvest sun; the warmth of a squeezed embrace; the easy melting of two souls into one and a taste that lingers even when everything else has melted away. Once tasted it is never forgotten. — Jenny Colgan

Then when Matt had come along it hadn't been fireworks, passion and fights and drama. It had been low- key, sweet, lovely. But that didn't meant it wasn't the real thing. It never had done. Just because it wasn't suprising hadn't meant it wasn't right. — Jenny Colgan

Some people buried their fears in food, she knew, and some in booze, and some in planning elaborate engagements and weddings and other life events that took up every spare moment of their time, in case unpleasant thoughts intruded. But for Nina, whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book. Books had been her solace when she was sad; her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down. Yet — Jenny Colgan

My good man, could we have one deadly issue to deal with at a time? — Jenny Colgan

They were probably reading on their tablets," said Nina loyally. She loved her e-reader, too. "Yes, I know," said the man. "But I couldn't see. I couldn't see what they were reading or ask them if it was good, or make a mental note to look for it later. It was as if suddenly, one day, all the books simply disappeared. — Jenny Colgan

she just hadn't met anyone who compared to the heroes of the books she loved. A Mr. Darcy, or a Heathcliff, or even, in the right mood, a Christian Gray . . . — Jenny Colgan

She just seemed to be a woman absolutely in need of the right book. There was, Nina was fervently convinced, one out there foreveryone. If only that went for everything in life. — Jenny Colgan

Anything that spreads books and brings about more books, I would say it is good. Good medicine, not bad. — Jenny Colgan

Everyone is alien. And even when you are in love with someone, even when you think you know them better than you know yourself; even when you think you know everything about them and they you, and you live in each other's souls.

Even then you know nothing about them at all. — Jenny Colgan

Life was always easier, reflected Issy, when you were carrying a large Tupperware full of cakes. Everyone was happy to see you then. — Jenny Colgan

We'd even devised the Buffy scale of life relationships: you start off wanting Xander, spend your twenties going out with Spike and setttle down with giles. — Jenny Colgan

I have a head for business and a body for sin. Unfortunately, the sin appears to be gluttony. — Jenny Colgan

it seemed there was no place for librarians anymore. — Jenny Colgan

Halloween is an ancient druidic holiday, one the Celtic peoples have celebrated for millennia. It is the crack between the last golden rays of summer and the dark of winter; the delicately balanced tweak of the year before it is given over entirely to the dark; a time for the souls of the departed to squint, to peek and perhaps to travel through the gap. What could be more thrilling and worthy of celebration than that? It is a time to celebrate sweet bounty, as the harvest is brought in. It is a time of excitement and pleasure for children before the dark sets in. We should all celebrate that. — Jenny Colgan