The Last Anniversary Quotes

"Nobody’s died, I hope?" she asks, all hale and hearty.

"You’d think Connie would have mentioned what she wanted to wear when she brought around all that minestrone soup."

"I could extend it," Callum offers as they sit down to breakfast. "Death in the family."

"The unfair sort of beauty that made it a painful pleasure just to look at her."

"It had been her destiny to become friends with Veronika, even though it was an annoying friendship at times."

"Sophie had a thing about Scribbly Gum Island."

"I’m a good person, Sophie reminds herself. Everybody loves me."

"The illustrations are gorgeous, full of detail and an intriguing touch of menace."

"What was so different about her imagined life from the reality of it?"

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"Being a mother is just like any other new skill, like driving a car or playing tennis."

"Sophie’s mother believes discretion is the height of rudeness."

"That’s because we’re celebrating Connie’s wonderful, colourful life!"

"It was true that Veronika had been the one to rather aggressively pursue the friendship."

"It was her destiny to live in Aunt Connie’s wonderful home on Scribbly Gum Island."

"For heaven’s sake, surely it’s disrespectful to be passing Tic-Tacs down the pew during a funeral!"

"It’s a wonder Connie hadn’t specified what everyone should wear to the funeral."

"She didn’t need self-talk. She had husband-talk."

"Don’t make me feel guilty, you frilly pink bitch!"

"Bellbirds. Sunlight gentle on her face. Lapping water. Salty air. Pine-O-Clean scrubbed floors."

"She knows she will remember this time in her life the way you remember the first few months of a new relationship."

"It is comforting to know that she can experience joy like this without it involving a man."

"She’s in love with this house. It’s so perfect it makes her want to laugh."

"You can’t help who chooses to march into your dreams and start kissing you without your permission."

"Sex in the morning. Sleepy, sticky, cosy sex. Like sex in a tent. Or sex in a sleeping bag."

"A baby is a baby. They all look the same. You might have to fake it in the beginning."

"What a fuss. It’s like you come out of a coma each morning."

"He decided–and he truly meant it–that he would be a bachelor forever."

"‘Here I am eating my dinner!’ ‘Here I am talking on the phone!’"

"Dear Aunt Connie, thank you for my brand-new life. What a thoughtful gift."

"She was like the guards at Buckingham Palace. She looked right through me."

"It’s hardly the worst thing that a mother can do."

"I thought about purposely hurting myself to get a reaction."

"I think it’s going to rain" when she came down to breakfast and her punishment had ended."

"Australia is a classless society. Egalitarian."

"It’s just the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s good business."

"Congratulations on your achievement, Rose Doughty, you overcame terrible pain and got out of bed."

"She’s been celibate for years. She needs to sleep with someone!"

"Sometimes even after everybody has confirmed she's safe she will put a morsel to her nose between pinched fingers and sniff like a suspicious dog and feel a tingle of danger at the back of her throat, a vision of a quick stir with a spoon covered in quivering golden drops of deadly sesame oil, and she’ll drop it back onto her plate and say, ‘Mmmm, I don’t trust it,’ and Callum will have to be restrained from marching into the kitchen to grab the chef by the throat and demand explanations."

"She’ll blush and giggle and Jake will grow a foot taller than her and put his arm around her and say to his mates, ‘This is my mum.’ His darling little mum. And nobody will think all that much about Grace except to say, ‘Oh, what a terrible tragedy.’"

"The girls are going to fall about laughing. Her life should be a sitcom it’s so funny. She giggles but it sounds like a hiccup. Or a sob."

"‘Oh,’ says Sophie. ‘I think it’s delicious.’"

"Eating the samosa is like eating a piece of evil."

"‘For God’s sake, Mum, I’m not seeing him!’ says Laura. Rose notices for the first time that Laura is looking better than she has in years."

"Grace’s limbs flail in raw, uncontrollable panic. She clutches at her throat and makes guttural sounds. There is a blur of strange, frightened faces around her."

"‘Oh,’ says Rose. ‘I think you’re meant to put lemon juice on it. Who told me that? I know. It was Rick. The gardener. I think he gets them sometimes.’"

"‘I’m sorry,’ continues Rick. ‘I had a great time with you the other day. It’s just that I was with her for years and I can’t turn my back on that.’"

"He thought he was superior to the sort of sleazy, shallow man who gets drunk and kisses another woman just a few months after his wife gives birth to their first child."

"All these treacherous thoughts about Sophie seem quite separate from his helpless, hopeless love for Grace."

"He speaks more naturally to the man at the service station where he buys his petrol each month than he does to his own wife."

"Sophie wakes up early and goes to the bathroom to look at the progress of her cold sore, which looks quite pretty now, just like a smudge of pale pink lipstick."

"She will train her mind like a rat in a maze."

"‘Why not?’ said Sophie, thoughtfully spearing a chopstick through her steamed pork bun."

"Grace and Callum are making the bed together...as if they’re just a normal married couple, as if everything is fine."

"She becomes aware of a digging pain, as if someone is poking her in the side. It’s jealousy."

"Don’t you think we should mess it up a bit?"

"‘I missed you when you left,’ says Sophie, remembering that all of a sudden as well."

"I think I thought anything that happened to me after I turned thirty would be sort of irrelevant."

"‘I’m sure you could find a nice guy prepared to wear a flowery apron for you,’ says Sophie flippantly."

"‘You mean not like it is for you and Audrey,’ Grace had teased."

"Yesterday I sat at my kitchen table and stared at a packet of cream cheese for a whole hour."

"‘Actually, I love you more than anyone,’ she whispers in his ear."

"‘She’s a beautiful baby,’ said Rose, to the back of his head."