Joanna Cannon Quotes & Sayings

We followed Mrs. Morton down the High Street. She sailed, like a vessel, along the pavement, skirting around pushchairs and small dogs, and people who had stopped to wipe ice cream from their chins.
July had found its fiercest day yet. The sky was ironed into an acid blue, and even the clouds had fallen from the edges, leaving a faultless page of summer above our heads. Even so, there were those who still nurtured mistrust. We walked past cardigans draped across elbows and raincoats bundled into shopping bags, and one woman who carried an umbrella wedged into her armpit, like artillery. It seemed that people couldn't quite let go of the weather, and felt the need to carry every form of it around with them, at all times, for safekeeping.

The trouble with goats and sheep by Joanna Cannon — Joanna Cannon

You'll understand as you get older. You can spot them a mile off, You'll learn to cross the street.' [...] 'Perhaps that's why they don't mix,' said Tilly, 'because everyone else is on the other side of the street? — Joanna Cannon

And I decided it really was true after all. You only really need two people to believe in the same thing, to feel as though you just might belong. — Joanna Cannon

What do you mean, Jesus?' May Roper pulled the crocheted sea a little further up her legs.
'On the drainpipe. I've seen Him with my own eyes.'
'Have you been in the sun again, Brian?'
'Sheila Dakin thinks it's a sign.'
'A sign she's been at the sherry. — Joanna Cannon

I still hadn't learned the power of words. How, once they have left your mouth, they have a breath and a life of their own. I had yet to realize that you no longer own them. I hadn't learned that, once you have let them go, the words can then, in fact, become the owner of you. — Joanna Cannon

The most important thing a garden needs is the shadow of a gardener. — Joanna Cannon

It appeared that Jesus pulled a much bigger crowd if He provided garibaldis. — Joanna Cannon

It's strange how the worst day of your life often starts just like any other. You might even complain very quietly to yourself about its ordinariness. You might with for something more interesting to happen, something to back of your routine, and just when you think you can't bear the monotony any longer, something comes along that shatters your life to such degree. you with with every cell in your body that your day hadn't become so unordinary. — Joanna Cannon

I thought I would like a job where inquiring about everyone else's private business was considered perfectly routine. — Joanna Cannon

Why does He hate the goats so much?'
[...]
'I'm not sure,' I said. 'He only seems to like sheep. — Joanna Cannon

After my bedroom, this was my favourite place in the world. It was carpeted, and had heavy bookcases and ticking clocks and velvet chairs, just like someone's living room. It smelled of unturned pages and unseen adventures, and on every shelf were people I had yet to meet, and places I had yet to visit. Each time, I lost myself in the corridors of books and the polished, wooden rooms, deciding which journey to go on next. Mrs — Joanna Cannon

Distract yourself, that's what Margaret always told him. When you start getting anxious, give your mind something else to think about. He had become an expert at distracting himself. He had distracted himself so much, he found himself drowning in distractions, and all the little details in the world seemed to join up together in his head and make a whole new problem to worry about. — Joanna Cannon

My mother said I was at an awkward age. I didn't feel especially awkward, so I presumed she meant that it was awkward for them. — Joanna Cannon

They assumed I didn't understand the conversation, and it was much easier to let them think that. My mother said I was at an awkward age. I didn't feel especially awkward, so I presumed she meant it was awkward for them. — Joanna Cannon