If I Had Never Met You Quotes & Sayings

Lincoln," Sam had asked him on one of those nights, the summer before their senior year, "do you think we'll get married some day?"
"I hope so," he'd whispered. He didn't usually think about it like that, like "married." He thought about how he never wanted to be without her. About how happy she made him and how he wanted to go on being that happy for the rest of his life. If a wedding could promise him that, he definitely wanted to get married.
"Wouldn't it be romantic," she said, "to marry your high school sweetheart? When people ask us how we met I'll say, 'We met in high school. I saw him, and I just knew.' And they'll say, 'Didn't you
ever wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? — Rainbow Rowell

You've been there all along, Bloodwitch. Somewhere, l-lurking. You are the reason I had to go to my tribe - which means you are the reason Corlant c-c-could attack. So if I had never met you, then would I even be here right now?"
"If I had never met you," he countered coolly, "then my spine would never have snapped, and Leopold fon Cartorra would never have hired me. Monk Evrane would not have almost died. — Susan Dennard

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

But what happened in Heaven? What did you do there? After a while, didn't you crave flaws? Love and lust and misunderstandings,, and maybe even a little violence to liven things up? Didn't light need shade? Didn't it? Maybe it didn't. Maybe I was missing the point. Maybe the point was to exist with an absence of pain. Yes, to exist with an absence of pain. Yes, maybe that was the only aim you needed in life. It certainly had been, but what happened if you'd never required that aim because you were born after their goal had been met? — Matt Haig

Percy says be talked to a Nereid in Charleston Harbor!"
"Good for him!" Leo yelled back.
"The Nereid said we should seek help from Chiron's brothers."
"What does that mean? The Party Ponies?" Leo had never met Chiron's crazy centaur relatives, but he'd heard rumors of Nerf sword-fights, root beer-chugging contests, and Super Soakers filled with pressurized whipped cream.
"Not sure," Annabeth said. "But I've got coordinates. Can you input latitude and longitude in this thing?"
"I can input star charts and order you a smoothie, if you want. Of course I can do latitude and longitude! — Rick Riordan

What a relief, Nadya thought; in that light he would not be able to tell that she had been crying.
"You mean if it weren't for the blackout you wouldn't have come?" Dasha took up Shchagov's tone, flirting unconsciously, as she did with every unmarried man she met.
"By no means, never. In bright light women's faces are deprived of all their charm; it reveals their spiteful expressions, their envious glances, their premature wrinkles, their heavy cosmetics."
Nadya shuddered at the words "envious glances" - it was as if he had overheard their argument.
Shchagov went on:" If I were a woman, I would make it a law that lights be kept low. Then everyone would soon have a husband."
Dasha looked disapprovingly at Shchagov. He always talked that way, and she didn't like it. All his phrases seemed memorized, insincere. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

is not the time you spend with someone, it is what happens in that time. I have known people for years, and yet never met the real person inside, if there is one. Others I have spoken with for only an hour or two, and yet what was said had meaning and honesty that will last forever. — Anne Perry

We lauhed together for a long time. When we
had first met, her eyes were dull with pain-killing drugs and if she
tried to talk, her face would controt with agonizing pain. I thought
how radiantly beautiful she now looked. She stood up to leave and went
to the door but then came back and kissed me.
'I hope I never see you again,' she said.
'I quite understand,' I replied. — Henry Marsh

I met a doctor the other night who told me he had always wanted to be a writer. I nodded. People always tell me that ... Then I thought to myself, 'You know, I've never met a writer who wanted to be anything else. They might bitch about something they're writing or about their poverty, but they never say they want to quit ... and if they do abandon it they become crazy, drunk or suicidal.' Writing is elemental. — Natalie Goldberg

It has been said that if you aim at nothing in life, you are likely to hit nothing! I have never had anyone come to me and say, 'Venita, I plan to fail.' Yet I have observed many who failed to plan and who unfortunately met with the same dismal results. — Venita VanCaspel

You know something?" He lifted his head, and when he turned to me, he had this strange look in his eyes. Almost as if he was really seeing me for the first time. "I don't think I ever really lived until this. I've never done anything that mattered before, but now I'm fighting to save my life, and yours. And I know it sounds really cheesy and lame, but I don't think I ever really felt alive. Not until I met you. — Amanda Hocking

You found it," she announced.
I smiled, knowing what she meant. She and I'd had conversations since I was a small child about finding true love. She'd fallen deep with my grampa, who I hadn't met, he'd died before I was born in a work accident, but she'd never sought out anyone else. She couldn't imagine her life without him. She'd told me that some people could find love over and over but others found it once and it was so perfect, so 'it' that they'd never look elsewhere, even if they lost it. They'd had such good from it that they were topped up for life. — D.D. Prince

You know, when I first met Gansey, I couldn't figure out why he was friends with someone like Ronan. Gansey was always in class, always getting stuff done, always a teacher's pet. And here was Ronan, like a heart attack that never stopped. I knew I couldn't complain, 'cause I hadn't come first. Ronan had. But one day, he'd done some stupid shit I don't even remember, and I just couldn't take it. And I asked why Gansey was even friends with him if he was such an asshole all the time. And I remember Gansey told me that Ronan always told the truth, and the truth was the most important thing. — Maggie Stiefvater

If you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things along the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner of the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than Frodo did. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there.
(J.R.R. Tolkien to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955.) — J.R.R. Tolkien

Sometimes, when I'm feeling sorry for myself, it seems that I'm made to carry an impossibly heavy weight, the crushing weight of losing her. I have moments of bitterness and doubt. You know? But the weight is a blessing, really, and I shouldn't be bitter about it. The weight is on my heart because I knew her and loved her. The weight is the accumulation of all we had together, all the hopes and worries, all the laughs, the picnics at St. Bart's bell tower, the adventures we shared because of my gift ... If they had taken her away on their yacht, if I had never met her, there would be no weight to carry - and no memories to sustain me. — Dean Koontz

I wondered ...if meeting people with creativity and passion when you were at an impressionable enough age actually kind of ruined you for life among normal people.

For a long time, I'd searched the world, thinking I could start up new friendships like the ones I'd had before. But I never met people like that again. I know people will think that's what everyone believes about their college friends, but it's true. Maybe we're like flowers that open up at that brief moment in our lives, and after that, we close up again, one by one. — Jennifer Finney Boylan

Entertaining shouldn't be about showing off. It's all about making people feel comfortable and setting a stage for everyone to have a good time, make new friends, and have stimulating conversations. You want to leave a party thinking: If I hadn't gone to that, I never would have met this wonderful person, or had that delicious meal, or felt that sense of camaraderie with the people I met at the dessert table. You don't want anyone looking at the clock, thinking, When can I leave? — Tim Gunn

If I was going to be a woman, I would want to be as beautiful as possible. And they said to me, 'Uh, that's as beautiful as we can get you.' And I went home and started crying to my wife, and I said, 'I have to make this picture.' And she said, 'Why?' And I said, 'Because I think I'm an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen, and I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn't fulfill, physically, the demands that we're brought up to think that women have to have in order for us to ask them out.' She says, 'What are you saying?' and I said, 'There's too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.' It was not what it felt like to be a woman. It was what it felt like to be someone that people didn't respect, for the wrong reasons. I know it's a comedy. But comedy's a serious business. — Dustin Hoffman

Her most unusual assignation was a quick visit with Fred Darsey, a young man recently escaped from Milledgeville State Hospital, where he was committed by his parents during a troubled adolescence. Darsey first caught her interest with a blind letter, in March, from the mental institution, revealing his passion for bird-watching. She was startled when her reply was returned and the envelope marked "eloped." She sympathized, when Darsey wrote her again from New York City, "When you have a friend there you feel as if you are there yourself, so you see I feel as if I have escaped too." Carver helped arrange the date, which Flannery kept secret from Regina, in Bryant Park, at the rear of the New York Public Library, with the pen pal she had never met. "I just love to sit and look at the people in New York, or anywhere," she told him, "even in Milledgeville." Flannery wound up her trip north spending the — Brad Gooch

What is the connection between you and our handsome host? Aunt B asked.
Blackberries taste much worse when they try to come back up your throat. "Uhhh ... "
"Uhhh is not an answer," Keira informed me.
Andre must not have told her about Hugh, and I had no desire to explain who my dad was. "We never met but we were trained by the same person. Now he works for a very powerful man who will kill me if he finds me."
"Why?" Keira asked.
"It's a family thing."
"That explains the attraction," Aunt B said.
"Attraction?"
"You're that thing he can't have. It's called forbidden fruit."
"I'm not his fruit!"
"He thinks you are. The word you're looking for is "smitten," my dear." Aunt B smiled. "I'm sure the way Megobari looked at you made Curran positively giddy. — Ilona Andrews

I broke away from Samedi and sprinted down the gangplank, screaming out Bram's name. His head turned, and he started limping toward me.
"Nora!" I heard someone yell.
Bram met me halfway. He scooped me up with one arm and pulled my head toward his. I didn't fight it in the least. He kissed me harshly, and I returned it, leaping up on my toes, seeking out his chapped, broken lips with my own, inexpertly, needfully. And then he just held me as I cried, soaking his dirty T-shirt with my tears, his cheek on my head.
"I thought you were gone," I managed to get out. "I thought you were really gone ... "
"I thought I was, too," he said, laughing weakly. "But I'd never leave you if I had the choice. I was going to get back to you, or grind to dust trying. — Lia Habel

Good evening, Lady Ruby," he answered. "What are you to dream of?" he asked again with a curious expression.
Ruby's cheeks turned red as she met his warm blue eyes. Her feet felt heavy as bricks, and she did not know if she could walk. She had thought she'd never see him again, but here he was now before her.
She thought of a crafty remark. "Not of you," she answered. But quickly she wondered if her protest made her sound like a silly, lovesick girl. She bit her lip.
"I see," he said. "Well, we will have to change that." He gave her a grin, a flash of dark sensuality that sent a bolt of excitement through her. — Jettie Necole

Stephen Herondale would have killed me if he'd ever met me. I would not have been safe living among people like you, or like him. I am the wife and mother of warriors who fought and died and never dishonored themselves as you have. I have worn gear, wielded blades, and slain demons, and all I wished was to overcome evil so that I could live and be happy with those I loved. I'd hoped I had made this a better, safer world for my children. Because of Valentine's Circle, the Herondale line, the line that was my son's children's children, is finished. That happened through you and your Circle and your husband. Stephen Herondale died with hate in his heart and the blood of my people on his hands. I can imagine no more horrible way for mine and Will's line to end. I will have to carry for the rest of my life the wound of what Valentine's Circle has done to me, and I will live forever. — Cassandra Clare

I bet you, if I had met Trotsky, and had had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man I didn't like. — Will Rogers

So what does the color blue say about you?" He studies all the parts of my face - mouth, nose, ears, chin - as if he's memorizing it for an exam. Then his eyes return to mine. "It says I never had a favorite color until I met this girl in a coffee shop with eyes so blue, they're almost purple, like the absolute final moments before sunrise. This girl stayed on my mind. When I saw things like a cluster of irises or a peacock at the zoo, I would think of her and say to myself, that is my favorite color. — Jessica Hawkins

Did you see anything?" Piper asked. "Anything at all?" Trevor was slumped on the couch, his NexFlight game system's power cord creating a tripping hazard in the underground bunker. It was supposed to be plugged while charging, but the batteries had dwindled to useless over a month ago. There were vast stores in a cold cellar near the bedrooms, reserved for flashlights and lanterns in case of emergency. Meyer would have a fit if Trevor used them for games. But Meyer wouldn't throw a fit because he was gone. And, Piper felt more certain by the day, was never coming back. "I didn't look." Trevor's eyes never left the game. "You didn't look? Go look, Trevor." Trevor sighed and met Piper's — Sean Platt

If we'd never met, you might have had a more peaceful life without calamity.

And I would have quietly grown old without challenge or interest. How dull! — Thomas Thorpe

My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers - the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being "reamed out" by managers - are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. It is hard to imagine any other function for workplace authoritarianism. Managers may truly believe that, without their unremitting efforts, all work would quickly grind to a halt. That is not my impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people who had learned to budget their energy, I never met an actual slacker or, for that matter, a drug addict or thief. On the contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or in recognition. Often, in fact, these people experienced management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be done. — Barbara Ehrenreich

I was 13 or 14 and I met Donald Trump at a bar mitzvah of a good friend of ours, who's friends with him. He had his girlfriend at the time with him, that Melania with him. He said, 'Hey guys, if you work hard and be successful, you'll get one of these.' I'll never forget that. And now he's married to her. — Jason Spezza

Nadia...first, I'm flattered you like me. You're a wonderful girl, and I'm lucky that I met you. You're one of my best friends, my only friends. And since that night with Ivy, you've been amazing. You and your brother have truly been there when I needed you to be."
I sigh. "Maybe if things had stayed normal - if I never got attacked, if I never met Ivy - I may have been able to return your feelings. But now...right now, I need a friend more than a girlfriend to help me get through this."
Nadia didn't look very happy, but she nodded; she understood. "You really liked her, didn't you?"
There was no doubt about my answer.
"Yeah. I did. I still do. And I will for the rest of my life. — Colleen Boyd

A fellow told me one about Wembley yesterday," I said, to help on the cheery flow of conversation. "Stop me if you've heard it before. Chap goes up to deaf chap outside the exhibition and says, "Is this Wembley?" "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "No, Thursday," says deaf chap. Ha, ha, I mean, what?"
The merry laughter froze on my lips. Sir Roderick sort of just waggled an eyebrow in my direction and I saw that it was back to the basket for Bertram. I never met a man who had such a knack of making a fellow feel like a waste-product. — P.G. Wodehouse

Shaw grinned again, wishing mightily that he and she were alone by the fire. "I never claimed to be much of a gentleman. But whether you tote about a parasol or not, you are every inch a lady. Quite possibly the finest I've ever met."
"Goodness. If you continue saying such things, I'll begin to think you're smitten with me."
"I'd describe it more as being clubbed into submission," he murmured, aware both that her palm had come to rest just over his heart, and that his men and the Mayfair mob across the fire pit could see it. "But yes, I am rather smitten with you. — Suzanne Enoch

You invented me. There is no such earthly being,
Such an earthly being there could never be.
A doctor cannot cure, a poet cannot comfort-
A shadowy apparition haunts you night and day.
We met in an unbelievable year,
When the world's strength was at an ebb,
Everything withered by adversity,
And only the graves were fresh.
Without streetlights, the Neva's waves were black as pitch,
Thick night enclosed me like a wall ...
That's when my voice called out to you!
Why it did-I still don't understand.
And you came to me, as if guided by a star
That tragic autumn, stepping
Into that irrevocably ruined house,
From whence had flown a flock of burnt verse. — Anna Akhmatova

Until I met you," she said, "I never realized how precious each day could be. When I was working, each day was over before I knew it, and then a week just flew by, and then a whole year ... What have I been doing all this time? Why didn't I meet you before? If I had to choose a whole year in the past, or a day with you-I'd choose a day with you ... — Shuichi Yoshida

She's my mom and she's never seen me this happy before. Of course, she thinks I love you."
I braved a look at him. "And do you?"
"If I deny it, will you be able to get through dinner?"
I nodded, ignoring the thin veil of his words over the truth I didn't want to accept. "Then I don't love you. You're the most aggravating woman I've ever met. I can barely tolerate you."
"And my kids?"
"Oh, no," he chuckled. "I definitely love them."
"You do?" An aching affection flooded my body, filling in all of the cracks that fear and uncertainty had left me with. An emotional heat bubbled in my chest and wrapped my stiff limbs with something like hope.
"Yes, I do. But they agree with me about you. You aggravate us all. — Rachel Higginson

By contrast, my wife at fifty-two yeas old seems to me just as attractive as the day I first met her. If I were to say this out loud, she would say, 'Douglas, that's just a line. No one prefers wrinkles, no one prefers grey.' To which I'd reply, 'But none of this is a surprise. I've been expecting to watch you grow older ever since we met. Why should it trouble me? It's the face itself that I love, not that face at twenty-eight or thirty-four or fourty-three. It's that face.'
Perhaps she would have liked to hear this but I had never got around to saying it out loud. I had always presumed there would be time and now, sitting on the edge of the bed at four a.m., no longer listening out for burglars, it seemed that it might be too late. — David Nicholls

So did you actually try to kill yourself? Or did that weird bitch just make up the whole thing?'
Silently, I held up my left arm, wrist facing Emily. She crossed her arms and kept her lips squished together as she examined me for a moment, sizing up those three perfect scars. Finally, she said, 'You know that you're supposed to cut down to kill yourself, right? You did it wrong.'
I looked at Emily and thought about what would have happened if I'd cut the other way. Or what wouldn't have happened. Char wouldn't have broken up with me. Alex wouldn't be mad at me. Pippa wouldn't hate me.
And I never would have met Vicky. I would never have had my first kiss. I would never have worn rhinestone pumps. I would never have heard Big Audio Dynamite. I would never have discovered Start. I would never have known I could be a DJ.
Emily Wallace didn't know what she was talking about. She never had.
You did it wrong, she said.
'No,' I said to her. 'I didn't. — Leila Sales

Darling, if I think of all I miss now, I will go crazy. I should not think of that. I only want to think of all that I still have, and then I am rich. Your spirit is always around me, in your diary, our letters, all the things you got for our household. How proud we were of that! And the nearly six years! O God, I thank you for those years. If I never had met you, I would now not have all the sorrow; but I would have missed these riches
and do these years not abundantly balance the lonely years I face without you? — Diet Eman

Lottie strode to the center of the study and stared at Gentry expectantly. She made her manner brisk. "When shall we leave?"
Gentry emerged from the corner. She saw from the flicker in his eyes that he had half-expected her to change her mind after speaking with Westcliff. Now that her choice had been reaffirmed, there was no turning back.
"Now," he said softly.
Her lips parted in the beginnings of an objection. Gentry intended to sweep her away without allowing any opportunity to say good-bye to anyone in the household, not even Lady Westcliff. On the other hand, it would be easier for her to simply disappear without having to explain anything to anyone. "Isn't it rather dangerous to travel at night?" she asked, then quickly answered her own question. "Never mind. If we met with a highwayman, I would probably be safer with him than you."
Gentry grinned suddenly. "You may be right."
-Lottie & Nick — Lisa Kleypas

I never met David Kelly, but I knew from what he told other people that this was not his view. The BBC were saying that Tony Blair was making up lies so that he could send young men and women to war, maybe to die. I think that if the BBC had done their jobs professionally, they'd have realised that you couldn't justify what they said. And nothing has emerged since to justify that report. — Alastair Campbell

Master Kell," said Alucard, cheerfully. "What an unexpected pleasure, running into you here." His voice had a natural undercurrent of laughter in it, and Kell could never tell if he was being mocked.
"I don't see how it's unexpected," said Kell, "as I live here. What is unexpected is running into you, since I thought I made myself quite clear the last time we met."
"Quite," echoed Alucard.
"Then what were you doing in my brother 's chambers?"
Alucard raised a single studded brow. "Do you want a detailed account? Or will a summary suffice? — V.E Schwab

I wonder, what kind of life would I have had if it hadn't been for my mother's tea-and-cookie parties? Perhaps it's because of them that I've never thought of women as my enemies, as territories I have to conquer, but always as allies and friends - which I believe is the reason why they were friendly to me in turn. I've never met those she-devils you hear about: they must be too busy with those men who look upon women as a fortress they have to attack, lay waste and left in ruins. — Stephen Vizinczey

If only I had met Molly sooner, when it was still possible to choose one road rather than another! Before that bitch Musyne and that little turd Lola crimped my enthusiasm! But it was too late to start being young again. I didn't believe in it any more! We grow old so quickly and, what's more, irremediably. You can tell by the way you start loving your misery in spite of yourself. Nature is stronger than we are, no two ways about it. She tries us in one particular mould, and we're never able to throw it off. I had started out as the restless type. Little by little, without realizing it, you begin to take your role and fate seriously, and, before you know it, it's too late to change. You're a hundred per cent restless, and it's set that way for good. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Where do you plan to live now that you're done with school?" Isabelle asked before Emma even had a chance to swallow. "Isabelle, enough," Ethan said as he rested his hands on Emma's shoulders. Isabelle's eyes flickered between the two of them, a muscle twitched in her cheek as her jaw clenched. "It's not the Spanish Inquisition." "Sorry," Isabelle said to Emma. "Its ok," Emma assured her. "It's just that Ethan doesn't bring many girls around, in fact I've never met a girlfriend of his; we were actually beginning to wonder if he even liked girls." "Isabelle!" Ethan hissed as Stefan choked on his drink and began to laugh loudly. — Brenda K. Davies

Tell me how Gisela can be married to a man she's never met?'
Aidan glanced across at Guthred as if expecting help from the king, but Guthred was still motionless, so Aidan had to confront me alone. 'I stood beside her in Lord Aelfric's place,' he said, 'so in the eyes of the church she is married.'
'Did you hump her as well?' I demanded, and the priests and monks hissed their disapproval.
'Of course not.' Aidan said, offended.
'If no one's ridden her,' I said, 'then she's not married. A mare isn't broken until she's saddled and ridden. Have you been ridden?' I asked Gisela.
'Not yet.' she said.
'She is married.' Aidan insisted.
'You stood at the altar in my uncle's place,' I said, 'and you call that a marriage?'
'It is.' Beocca said quietly.
'So if I kill you,' I suggested to Aidan, ignoring Beocca, 'she'll be a widow? — Bernard Cornwell

I love you Tory. I know I say it a lot, but ... "
"I know baby. I feel the same way about you. Those words never convey what goes through my mind and heart every time I look up and see you sitting in my house. Funny thign is, I always thought my house was full and that there was nothing missing in my life. I had a job I loved. Family who loved me. Good friends to keep me sane. Everything a human could want. And t hen I met an infuriating, impossible man who added the one thing I didn't know wasn't there."
"Dirty socks on the floor?"
She laughed. "No, the other part of my heart. The last face I see before I go to sleep and the first one I see when I get up. I'm so glad it was you."
Those words both thrilled and scared him. Mostly because he knew firsthand that if love went untended it turned into profound hatred.
Tory and Acheron — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The only question that got any traction was when he asked Martin what he did. Martin tersely replied that he was a wizard and was met with a blank stare. "You know, a wizard," Martin said. "I do magic." Martin had expected that this would at least impress Ampyx. Martin was wrong. "Why?" Ampyx asked. "Why what? Why do I do magic?" "Yes, why do you do magic?" Ampyx asked, as if it were the most obvious question in the world. Martin looked at Phillip, who shrugged. Finally, Martin answered, "Why wouldn't I do magic? Wouldn't you do magic if you could?" "Never," Ampyx said. "Well, why not?" Ampyx scrunched his face and said, "Magic . . . it is . . . woman's work." Martin — Scott Meyer

Who's Mrs. Gummidge?'
'If you're a good girl and get well soon I'll lend you the book.'
'Oh, somebody in a book! All you people like Nilla and the Cornishes and that man Darcourt seem to live out of books. As if everything was in books!'
'Well, Schnak, just about everything is in books. No, that's wrong. We recognize in books what we've met in life. But if you'd read a few books you wouldn't have to meet everything as if it had never happened before, and take every blow right on the chin. You'd see a few things coming ... — Robertson Davies

You see, I never knew what I wanted to be
I still don;t know. All I knew was that I was supposed to get married and have babies just like my mother did and my sisters did. I wanted to do that. I met your father and I was his wife, that is who I was. Then I had my children. And then I was a mother. That's who I was. A wife and a mother but I don't know if I was or if I am of any real value. You and the boys are all grown up, so what I am now? — Cecelia Ahern