The Girl On The Cliff Quotes
"I won’t hurt you, I promise. Walk towards me and you’ll be safe."
"I can take you home if you tell me where you live. You’ll catch your death out here. Please, let me help you."
"I'm thirty-one years old, and I’ve lived in Manhattan for the past ten of those."
"Whenever I have a problem in my mind to be sorted, I’ll be off walking and come back knowing the answer."
"Well, I suppose if I’m not telling you, you’ll be hearing it soon enough from someone else. She took her own life, so she did."
"A little life inside her had done the same… Four months… when she and Matt had finally thought they were home and dry."
"But you’re a big girl now and I can’t stop you."
"I understand it was real hard on you losing the baby, but we can try again, surely?"
"She’s always been a law unto herself. I guess that’s why I love her the way I do."
"Unless there was something that Kathleen didn’t know…"
"I’m sure she’ll come back to you when she’s ready."
"She’s certainly unusual. And doesn’t seem to care for the rules most of us abide by."
"She’s far more fun than the old nanny, Daddy."
"Well, now Mummy’s dead, he doesn’t have anyone to take care of him, does he? Except me."
"It’s a rare and magical place. And you love it, don’t you, Aurora?"
"And for all her own freedom from what many modern women would consider outdated male tyranny, who was currently the most content out of mother and daughter?"
"We are past the business of simple survival."
"Well, now, I wouldn’t be knowing how she was."
"I suppose you could let her know as soon as possible? I leave on Sunday."
"’Tis hardly a secret. The Lisle family used to own the whole of Dunworley, including this very house."
"Now, we demand happiness. We believe we deserve it."
"I know your sculptures sell for a minimum of ten thousand dollars each, Grania."
"I haven’t seen my daughter respond to anyone the way she has to you since her mother died. I find it – very moving."
"But sometimes I feel she’s here, and I’m sure I see her. But when I tell Daddy, he gets cross and sends me to a doctor, so I don’t tell him any more."
"But it’s only a dream, isn’t it? Mummy’s dead, she can’t come back because she’s in heaven."
"The end of the war meant the end of her time with Anna."
"Huge numbers of them were still unaccounted for. Surely then, she thought desperately, there was still hope?"
"The rest of the world slowly began to look to the future for the first time in five years."
"‘Surely, it’s best if I stay here with you, for now?’ she cooed to Anna as she bathed her."
"‘Good, good. Well now, Mary, you’ve probably noticed how the house is coming back to life.'"
"‘While, no erm… body, has been found, there must always be hope.'"
"‘Our heartfelt condolences are sent to both you, and to his family, whom we will be informing separately.'"
"‘She is such a beautiful child. Perhaps you’d like to visit the nursery to see her. Or I could bring her down here?’ she offered eagerly."
"It’s as if Anna knows what to do instinctively."
"‘That poor child has been abandoned by the very person who promised to protect her.'"
"You know I’ll never give you away, don’t you, dear?"
"‘I’m sure they’ll be in contact when they’re ready, pet,’ Mary answered guiltily."
"‘War has changed everything, there is nothing I n-need to know about you. Other than that you are the k-kindest person I have ever met.'"
"Because I love both of you l-lots and lots and lots!"
"I’ve learned in the trenches that class has nothing to do with one’s c-character."
"You have done your best to pr-protect someone you love, and you should n-never be ashamed of that! Never!"
"Protecting an orphan, just like yourself, is something to be proud of."
"I think I should investigate going through the process of us officially adopting Anna."
"No one can touch her now, darling. Or take you or her away from m-me."
"I loved you, pet, with all my heart. Didn’t you know that? Couldn’t you feel it?"
"I hope you don’t mind, but when you were out collecting Aurora from school, I popped into the studio. Your sculpture of her is absolutely exquisite."
"It’s amazing how beauty can mask so many flaws."
"It’s a pleasure for both myself and Aurora to have a normal woman living in the house."
"Grania, to me you seem like everything a woman should be. And a mother, for that matter."
"For the first time, Grania allowed the tears to fall properly. She wept for the tiny, fragile life that had been lost."
"Lily had no boundaries and her exuberance was infectious."
"But you know that I live in New York. I have a life and a career which is very important to me."
"Just because someone isn’t in the same room as you, or isn’t with you at that moment, doesn’t mean that person’s not loving you."
"I’m going to meet your new nanny now. You know Daddy wouldn’t employ someone to look after you who wasn’t."
"Because you’re still in love with Grania? Yeah. I guess I am."
"An ominous feeling of dread assailed Kathleen as she imagined the other three drunk, wandering into the waves, not in their right senses."
"Joe especially was pretty merry. I hope something awful hasn't happened to them."
"Joe is a grown man. And he wasn't saying no."
"The saints only knew what kind of effect it would have on him."
"I don’t know, but when I did, Lily, Joe and Gerald had gone."
"I’m promising you, ask anyone, Joe is harmless."
"Joe, please, it’s important you listen to me."
"He didn’t understand, you see, what was happening to him."
"But what we can do to put this wrong right, I just don’t know."
"Daddy always wanted me to concentrate on my lessons."
"I hope you’re going to take a holiday today, Uncle Hans, so I can show you my animals."
"Uncle Hans, come and see! Grania’s turned me into a statue!"
"Perhaps it is that she had little attention as a child. Now, she has much."
"Her ballet teacher thinks she has extraordinary potential as a dancer."
"I love you, Daddy. And you, Mummy. See you both in heaven soon."
"Enough of me. But thank you, Hans, for being honest. It’s helped me, it really has."
"It’s not healthy for a woman of Grania’s age to be alone."
"Many’s the thing that can be sorted over a brew and a good chat."
"You should ask yourself why do you not wish people to help you?"
"I think that in some ways my pride has blighted my life."
"Perhaps it is simply your personality or, more likely, it is borne out of a sense of insecurity."
"I won’t have my boy deceived over something as important as this."
"I need to get outta here, get some fresh air."
"I sure can’t express the joy I feel at this moment."
"I have no "different" life any more. This is my life."
"You are too young and talented to bury yourself here."
"It is down to all of us to make our own destinies."
"I suppose what you might call Daddy’s magic dust."
"It’s just Mummy’s old bones. It’s not where she lives."
"Is there any place we can go where we can talk, over some food perhaps?"
"I thought that you looked so lonely and sad."
"It was as if, up to today, she’d been incarcerated in a bubble of numbness, the walls plastered with a thick veneer of insecurity and pride."
"The price of a calf has risen by ten per cent."
"Your pop suggested I go with him to Cork at breakfast this morning, so I moved it."
"I have no choice really, do I? You’ll be thrown out of the country if I do."
"The trick is not only to know your failings, but to strive to put them right."
"We all make decisions as though we will live forever."