Jojo's Quotes & Sayings

It's quite hard to stay calm and understanding when you see the same faces, the same mistakes made again and again. — Jojo Moyes

He's a singular person, Will. From the time he hit adolescence, I always had to fight the feeling that in his eyes I had somehow done something wrong. I've never been quite sure what it was. — Jojo Moyes

When you work hard to get somewhere, it's quite nice to show people where you belong. — Jojo Moyes

It was only when we brought Will back home, once the annex was adapted and ready, that I could see a point in making it beautiful again. I needed to give my son something to look at. I needed to tell him, silently, that things might change, grow, or fail, but that life did go on. That we were all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God's purpose to understand. I couldn't say that to him, of course - Will and I have never been able to say much to each other - but I wanted to show him. A silent promise, if you like, that there was a bigger picture, a brighter future. — Jojo Moyes

I never really cared what anyone thought of me until he came along, " she said. "And now, I can't believe it's me he's chosen. Every morning I wake up and thank God that he did. Every night I go to bed praying that time will go that much faster so that I can be with him again. I think all the time about what he's doing , who he's talking to. Not in a jealous way , or anything. I just want to be closer to him, and if I can imagine what he's doing, then that helps. — Jojo Moyes

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They're too polite to actually stare. Instead, they do this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he's gone past, at which point their gaze flickers toward him, even while they remain in conversation with someone else. They won't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude. — Jojo Moyes

There's no such thing as a life free of complications, Rory. We all end up making compromises in the end. — Jojo Moyes

Ellie's head sinks into her hands, and she weeps for the unknown Boot, for Jennifer, for chances missed and a life wasted. She cries for herself, because nobody will ever love her like he loved Jennifer, and because she suspects that she is spoiling what might have been a perfectly good, if ordinary, life. She cries because she is drunk and in her flat and there are few advantages to living on your own except being able to sob uninhibitedly at will. — Jojo Moyes

Life is short, right? We both know that. Well, what if you're my chance? What if you are the thing that's actually going to make me happiest? — Jojo Moyes

You think I don't know how that feels? There's only one response, and I can tell you this because I see it every day. You live. And you throw yourself into everything and try not to think about the bruises." "Oh, — Jojo Moyes

I worked out what would make me happy, and I worked out what I wanted to do, and I trained myself to do the job that would make those two things happen'
'You make it sound so simple.'
'It is simple,' he said. 'The thing is, it's also a lot of hard work. And people don't want to put in a lot of work. — Jojo Moyes

I'm telling you there's a while world out there. — Jojo Moyes

I stared at them. 'Every time what?' I said, as Nathan put the money into Will's hand.
'He said you'd be reading a book. I said you'd be watching telly. He always wins.'
My sandwich stilled at my lips. 'Always?
You've been betting on how boring my life is? — Jojo Moyes

It's not the bloody carrots that upset me. It's having them sneaked into my food by a madwoman who addresses the cutlery as Mr and Mrs Fork. — Jojo Moyes

It had been years before she could view anybody else's happiness without mourning the loss of her own. — Jojo Moyes

You know, you spend your whole life feeling like you don't quite fit in anywhere. And then you walk into a room one day, whether it's at university or an office or some kind of club, and you just go, 'Ah. There they are.' And suddenly you feel at home. — Jojo Moyes

The ability to earn a living by doing the thing one loves must be one of life's greatest gifts. — Jojo Moyes

Then I spotted Kitty, Keyonna and JoJo. Kitty's hair was now blonde and Keyonna's hair was now red. JoJo and Kitty were in a huddle talking and Keyonna was pacing back and forth, looking like a nervous wreck. — Myiesha

There is nothing more disconcerting to passers-by than to see a man in a wheelchair pleading with a woman who is meant to be looking after him. It's apparently not really the done thing to be angry with your disabled charge. Especially — Jojo Moyes

No, it was the livid red lines scoring Will's wrists, the long, jagged scars that couldn't be disguised, no matter how swiftly Nathan pulled down Will's sleeves. — Jojo Moyes

Good to meet you, Patrick," Will said. "And thank you for the ... advice."
"Oh, just trying to help my girlfriend get the best out of her job," he said. "That's all." There was a definite emphasis on the word my.
"Well, you're a lucky man," Will said, as Nathan began to steer him out. "She certainly gives a good bed bath." The words came out so quickly that the door was closed before Patrick even realized what he had said. — Jojo Moyes

Sometimes, she told herself, life was a series of obstacles that just had to be negotiated, possibly through sheer act of will. She stared out at the muddy blue of the endless sea, gulped in the air, lifted her chin, and decided that she could survive this. She could survive most things. It was nobody's right to be happy, after all. — Jojo Moyes

It's like I'm looking through a funnel, she had said, gazing at his newborn form. The world has just shrunk to me and him. — Jojo Moyes

I've been through a lot, both personally and professionally, and the album that I started to record two and a half years ago is a different album from the one that exists today. I even changed the album title. First it was 'All I Want is Everything,' and now it's 'Jumping Trains.' — Jojo

... "Lived happily ever after," Natasha concluded, thinking back to that photograph. The woman who was well loved.
John's glare was withering. "Are you kidding me?" he said. "Who the hell gets to live happily ever after? — Jojo Moyes

You have to stop drawing on things!"Teena was yelling. "Paper only, okay? Not walls. Not faces. Not Mrs. Reynold's dog. Not my pants."
"I was doing the days of the week pants"
"I don't need days of the week pants!" She shouted. "And if I did I would spell Wednesday correctly! — Jojo Moyes

What am I meant to do with what's left? — Jojo Moyes

How does one lift one's own life out of the mundane and into something epic? Surely one should be brave enough to love? — Jojo Moyes

All that counts is the truth. Without it you're basically just juggling people's daft ideas. — Jojo Moyes

Now ring that bloke of yours to tell him you're staying out all night, then have another drink. In fact, have six. It would please me no end to see you get hammered on Alicia's father's bill. And so I did. — Jojo Moyes

So Lily's mouth would open and nothing would come out, then Louisa would start rattling on about meeting her grandmother or whether she had eaten something and she had realized she was on her own. — Jojo Moyes

I'm not going to try and change your mind."
"If you're here, you accept it's my choice. This is the first thing I've been in control of since the accident."
"I know."
And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak ... — Jojo Moyes

We want a macho high-earner - with the sensitivity of Gok Wan. We want a man with Brad Pitt's six-pack - but one who's prepared to overlook our own muffin top. No wonder most men don't know if they're coming or going. — Jojo Moyes

I don't attend an actual school but I'm still following through with high school. I do work with a tutor for about six hours a day. It's hard core but definitely worth it, and it's my main focus now - finishing up high school before I release my new album and apply to college. — Jojo

She believed me fearless. But nothing frightened me as much as my sister's fears. — Jojo Moyes

You know your sister has been reading The Female Eunuch? And some old shite called The Women's Bedroom or something. She says your mother is a classic example of oppressed womanhood, and that the fact your mother disagrees shows how oppressed she is. She's trying to tell her I should be doing the cooking and cleaning and making out I'm some fecking caveman. But if I dare to say anything back she keeps telling me to "check my privilege". Check my privilege! I told her I'd be happy to check it if I knew where the hell your mother had put it. — Jojo Moyes

I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history. That's what he was asking me to extinguish - the small child as well as the man - all that love, all that history. And — Jojo Moyes

I tell him I don't see it that way. Look out at the sea for long enough, at its moods and frenzies, at its beauties and terrors, and you'll have all the stories you need - of love and danger, and about what life lands in your nets. And the fact that sometimes it's not your hand on the tiller, and you can do no more than trust that it'll all work out okay. — Jojo Moyes

I guess the best thing you can do is just be there. You don't have to think her's right. But you do have to be there. — Jojo Moyes

You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true. — Jojo Moyes

Only in acting I'm going by Joanna JoJo Levesque. In singing, just JoJo. But the reason we wanted to go with JoJo Levesque is most people know me as JoJo. People that are familiar with me would still be like, 'Oh, that's JoJo.' — Jojo

Studies course, so they can take me for the beginning of the next term." "What about Thomas?" "There's a nursery on campus. We — Jojo Moyes

Hannah ran past, beaming. I remember that feeling
when you're a kid and it's your birthday and for one day everyone makes you feel like the most special person in the world. — Jojo Moyes

The play you're referring to. It's Pygmalion. My Fair Lady is just its bastard offspring. I — Jojo Moyes

He doesn't have to actually do anything, but it's about widening his horizons, right? We — Jojo Moyes

Marty used to tell her she had the world's worst poker face: her feelings floated across her features like reflections on a still pond. — Jojo Moyes

I write in all sorts of places; it's a legacy of my time as a journalist, where I could turn out copy in a hotel corridor. But I have a little office that I rent in my local town, and that's my ideal place. — Jojo Moyes

Music is something that I have to do on a regular basis. It really is my life and I absolutely love it. It's a part of my day-to-day. So if I had to choose, it would be music. But I love acting too. — Jojo

Do I mind? No! Because that's the way he is. He's a human being! Nose hair and all! — Jojo Moyes

Jess's grandmother had often said that the key to a happy life was a short memory. — Jojo Moyes

He grimaced. 'Jesus, for a girl who made tea for a living you make a terrible cup.'

'You're just used to lesbian tea,' I said. 'All that lapsang souchong herbal stuff.'

'Lesbian tea!' He almost choked. 'Well, it's better than this stair varnish. Christ. You could stand a spoon up in that. — Jojo Moyes

My father calls me a 'character', because I tend to say the first thing that pops into my head. He says I'm like my Aunt Lily, who I never knew. It's a bit weird, constantly being compared to someone you've never met. I would come downstairs in purple boots, and Dad would nod at Mum and say, 'D'you remember Aunt Lily and her purple boots, eh?' and Mum would cluck and start laughing as if at some secret joke. My mother calls me 'individual', which is her polite way of not quite understanding the way I dress. — Jojo Moyes

There were many ways in which I disliked my sister. A few years ago I could have shown you whole scribbled lists I had written on that very topic. I hated her for the fact that she's got thick, straight hair, while mine breaks off if it grows beyond my shoulders. I hated her for the fact that you can never tell her anything that she doesn't already know. I hated her for the fact that for my whole school career teachers insisted on telling me in hushed tones how bright she was, as if her brilliance wouldn't mean that by default I lived in a permanent shadow. I hated her for the fact that at the age of twenty-six I lived in a box room in a semidetached house just so she could have her illegitimate son in with her in the bigger bedroom. — Jojo Moyes

You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they're not living, breathing people any more.
It's not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you, and makes you want to cry in the wrong places, and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead.
It's just something you learn to accommodate.
Like adapting around a hole. I don't know. It's like you become ... a doughnut instead of a bun — Jojo Moyes

12 I wrote to Mrs. Traynor. I didn't tell her about Lily, just that I hoped she was well, that I was back from my travels and would be in her area in a few weeks with a friend, and would like to say hello if possible. I sent it first class, and felt oddly excited as it plopped into the postbox. Dad had told me over the phone that she had left Granta House within weeks of Will's death. He said the estate workers had been shocked, but I thought back to the time I had spotted Mr. Traynor out with Della, the woman he was now about to — Jojo Moyes

Le Marais?'

'It's a little district in the centre of Paris. It is full of cobbled streets and teetering apartment blocks and gay men and orthodox Jews and women of a certain age who once looked like Brigitte Bardot. It's the only place to stay. — Jojo Moyes

It's just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man - the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated off-spring - you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up into one.
I look at him and see the baby I held in my arms, dewing besotted, unable to believe that I'd created another human being. I see the toddler, reaching for my hand, the schoolboy weeping tears of fury after being bullied by some other child. I saw the vulnerabilities, the love, the history. — Jojo Moyes

Hey," he's saying softly, "hey . . . this isn't like you." How would you know? she thinks. Nobody knows what is like me. I'm not even sure I know. — Jojo Moyes

All I felt when I saw Vanessa was this weird sensation I used to get when I was a kid, like when you're at a friend's house and your mum comes to get you before you're ready. — Jojo Moyes

I think people get bored of grief," said Natasha. "It's like you're allowed some unspoken allotted time - six months maybe - and then they get faintly irritated that you're not 'better,' like you're being self-indulgent hanging on to your unhappiness. — Jojo Moyes

Just for carrying on, really. Sometimes, my darling girl, that's heroic in itself. — Jojo Moyes

You still don't get it, Clark, do you?" I could hear the smile in his voice. "It's not your choice. — Jojo Moyes

Mr Traynor's a nice man. And I wouldn't have brought you here if I thought it wouldn't go well.'

'If he doesn't like me, can we just leave? Like, really quickly?'

'Of course.'

'I'll know. Just from how he looks at me.'

'We'll skid out on two wheels if necessary. — Jojo Moyes

She had the world's worst poker face: her feelings floated across them like reflections on a still pond. — Jojo Moyes

Chick-lit may be staggering on its heels, but women's fiction is alive and kicking. — Jojo Moyes

He can't bear it. I've sat there with him and there is nothing I can say to the guy, nothing that is going to make it any better. He's been dealt the shittiest hand of cards you can imagine. — Jojo Moyes

Um ... I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm good at dealing with all sorts of people and ... and I make a mean cup of tea." I began to blather into the silence. The thought of it being her son had thrown me. "I mean, my dad seems to think that's not the greatest reference. But in my experience there's not much that can't be fixed by a decent cup of tea ... " There — Jojo Moyes

I was good at keeping secrets from my parents (it's one of the things we learn while growing up, after all). — Jojo Moyes

If chick-lit really is taking a commercial battering, I'd suggest it's because the marketing has been done to death. Covering everything in girlie pink and putting chocolate in the title may once have been a clever Pavlovian device but now makes readers feel a bit sick. — Jojo Moyes

I want to tell him that I don't know what i feel. I want him but i'm frightened to want him. I don;t want my happiness to be entirely dependent on somebody else's to be a hostage to fortunes I cannot control. — Jojo Moyes

How do we figure out when to call, when to text, and when to just drop everything, stand outside someone's window, and serenade them with your favorite nineties R&B tune, perhaps "All My Life" by K-Ci & JoJo? — Aziz Ansari

Do you know what my name is, converted to binary code?"
He looked at her. "Is Tanzie your full name?"
"No. But it's the one I use."
He blew out his cheeks. "Um. Okay. 01010100 01100001 01101110 01111010 01101001 01100101."
"Did you say 1010 at the end? Or 0101?"
"1010. Duh. — Jojo Moyes

They say you only really appreciate a garden once you reach a certain age, and I suppose there is a truth in that. It's probably something to do with the great circle of life. There seems to be something miraculous about seeing the relentless optimism of new growth after the bleakness of winter, a kind of joy in the difference every year, the way nature chooses to show off different parts of the garden to its full advantage. — Jojo Moyes

Will's eyes locked onto mine and despite everything, — Jojo Moyes

There's only one response, and I can tell you this because I see it every day. You LIVE. And you throw yourself into everything and try not to think about the bruises. — Jojo Moyes

Vicariously,'" she said slowly. "You'll have to tell me what that means, Anthony." The way she said his name induced a kind of intimacy. It promised something, a repetition in some future time. "It means" - Anthony's mouth had dried - "it means pleasure gained through the pleasure of someone else. — Jojo Moyes

Unless you sell millions, I think it's very hard as a writer not to feel anxious about what you put out. I always feel I could do better. — Jojo Moyes

Page 117 Sam says "You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they're not living, breathing people anymore. It's not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you and makes you want to cry in the wrong places and irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It's just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a hole. I don't know. It's like you become ... a doughnut instead of a bun." page 117 — Jojo Moyes

Over the past couple of months, Chantel had become a pro at leading book discussions and inventing fun games and trivia questions that all related to that particular month's book selection. Although, last month's theme, dystopian and the book selection "Matched" by Allie Condie, had the retirement home director a little concerned when everyone wanted to stop taking their medications. Not... a good... thing! — JoJo Sutis

Nathan stared at the floor. "Honestly? He's a C5-6 quadriplegic. That means nothing works below about here ... " He placed a hand on the upper part of his chest. "They haven't worked out how to fix a spinal cord yet." I stared at the door, thinking about Will's face as we drove along in the winter sunshine, the beaming face of the man on the skiing holiday. "There are all sorts of medical advances taking place, though, right? I mean ... somewhere like this ... they must be working on stuff all the time. — Jojo Moyes

That's fine," he said. "Now ring that bloke of yours to tell him you're staying out all night, then have another drink. In fact, have six. It would please me no end to see you get hammered on Alicia's father's bill. — Jojo Moyes

I turned in my seat. Will's face was in shadow and I couldn't quite make it out.
'Just hold on. Just for a minute.'
'Are you all right?' I found my gaze dropping towards his chair, afraid some part of him was pinched, or trapped, that I had got something wrong.
'I'm fine. I just . . . '
I could see his pale collar, his dark suit jacket a contrast against it.
'I don't want to go in just yet. I just want to sit and not have to think about . . . ' He swallowed.
Even in the half-dark it seemed effortful.
'I just . . . want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.'
I released the door handle.
'Sure.'
I closed my eyes and lay my head against the headrest, and we sat there together for a while longer, two people lost in remembered music, half hidden in the shadow of a castle on a moonlit hill. — Jojo Moyes

Every time you get a chance to move forward, you just hijack your own future. it's like - you don't actually want to... You're in control of your own life. And yet you act like you're permanently buffeted by events outside your control. — Jojo Moyes

Nobody ever says "sweet girl" about someone they were in love with. It's like the whole "we'll still be friends" thing. It means you didn't feel enough.'
He was briefly amused. 'So what would I have said if I had been in love with her?'
'You would have looked very serious, and said, "Karen. Complete nightmare," or shut down and gone all "I don't want to talk about it. — Jojo Moyes

It's not a church, Josie. And I have an important message."
Mum gazed around her. "Bernard. Now is not the-"
"And my message is-*these*."
My father bent over and with exaggerated care pulled up his trouser legs. First the left then the right. From my position on the other side of the water tank I could see that his shins were pale and faintly blotchy. The rooftop fell silent. Everyone stared. He extended one leg.
"Smooth as a baby's backside. Go on, Josie, feel them. — Jojo Moyes

To fish someone out of the men's loos. — Jojo Moyes

The sooner you get another job, babe, the better.'

'It's all of twenty-four hours since I lost the last one. Am I allowed to just be a bit miserable and floppy? You know, just for today?'

'But you've got to look at the positive side. You knew you couldn't stay at that place forever. You want to move upwards, onwards. — Jojo Moyes

But don't blame me for the food. My wife knows a hundred and one ways to incinerate a cow, and as far as I can tell she's still experimenting. — Jojo Moyes

Did you hear that, Bernard?" she said, her hand half over the phone. "They're paying her to sleep now."
I could hear my father's exclamation. "Praise the Lord. She's found her dream career. — Jojo Moyes

I was inspired by Colin Farrell in the fact that he's Irish and has freckles but with black hair. I'm a bunch of different things, Irish, Polish, Native American, and French, but I wanted to tap into that Irish side and be freckle-y with black hair, so that's what I did. — Jojo

I had been a magistrate for almost eleven years. I watched the whole of human life come through my court: the hopeless waifs who couldn't get themselves together sufficiently even to make a court appointment on time; the repeat offenders; the angry, hard-faced young men and exhausted, debt-ridden mothers. It's quite hard to stay calm and understanding when you see the same faces, the same mistakes made again and again. I could sometimes hear the impatience in my tone. It could be oddly dispiriting, the blank refusal of humankind to even attempt to function responsibly. And — Jojo Moyes

All Chelsea's internet dates were gorgeous. Until she met them. — Jojo Moyes

The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life
or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else's life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window
is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people. — Jojo Moyes

I think there is an awful lot of technology for technology's sake. I have yet to be convinced by my husband that persuading our mobiles to talk to our computers is going to be quicker and more straightforward than scribbling a note in our kitchen diary. — Jojo Moyes

That's the thing you don't know about children unless you have them - bath time, Lego, and fish fingers don't allow you to dwell on tragedy for too long. — Jojo Moyes

I liked the fact that I could be who I wanted to be without my sister's voice reminding me of who I had been. — Jojo Moyes

What are you saying?" He fought to keep his voice under control. "You love me but there's no hope for us? — Jojo Moyes

We are all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God's purpose to understand. — Jojo Moyes

Um, Jess?"
"Not now, Nicky."
The police car was pulling over, too. Tanzie's palms had begun to sweat. *It will all be fine.*
"I guess this isn't the time to tell you I brought my stash with me. — Jojo Moyes

In my experience, there's not much that can't be fixed by a decent cup of tea. — Jojo Moyes