Patrick Gale Quotes & Sayings

Might-have-been are insidious, aren't they, in the way they don't ever quite lie still or go away. — Patrick Gale

Bad men you want to kiss are the worst; he had only to use the right tone of voice and you offered your throat to the knife. — Patrick Gale

And she does not feel jilted, even one year on. Ben was weak or, fatal combination, weak and good. Jilting implied, if not malice, then aforethought and he was considerate to a fault and not a planner. As he had confessed all those months ago he was not the powerful one in his marriage, not when Chloe was near enough to influence him.
As the weeks wore on laura realised
that whatever offstage battle had taken place, she had lost. Chloe might not love him more, but her love it seemed, had proved the most tenacious. And, who knew, perhaps she had surprised them both with her strength of feeling. Perhaps it had taken such a crisis for him finally to fall in love with her and he had woken to the novel wonder of her as a man returning from a fever would be astounded at the mundane pleasure of grapes or daisies. — Patrick Gale

I worry sometimes that we're apt to confuse forgiveness with forgetfulness. The potency of forgiveness comes precisely from the fact that it must be done while being goaded by an unhappy memory. — Patrick Gale

Like all their peers they went about things in the reverse order to the practice of their parents generation. They had sex, realised they got on really well then fell in love. — Patrick Gale