One Hundred Names Quotes
"Any secret, any piece of confidential information, personal or otherwise, that went in never, ever came back out."
"She was perfectly named with a birth name that meant consistency and fortitude."
"The tiny part of her that still clung to rationality knew that this wasn’t realistic, that it wasn’t right."
"I’m almost finished there. I’ll just take your temperature."
"We use these times to become better reporters and, more importantly, better people."
"A nation? A genre? A sex? That interests me more."
"And that does not mean injecting opinion into the pieces, Kitty, for that bothers me too."
"You won’t get it wrong, Kitty. You know, telling a story – or, as I like to say, seeking the truth – is not necessarily to go on a mission all guns blazing in order to reveal a lie."
"You were the only person who truly told me in that interview that you weren’t afraid to fly, that in fact you were afraid that you wouldn’t."
"I once interviewed a man who seemed increasingly amused by my questions."
"He told me that he found the questions an interviewer asked revealed much more about the interviewer than any of his answers revealed about himself."
"I did not have an exclusive with the penguin."
"You were covering bullshit stories so they knew you’d want to jump on this straight away, have your moment of glory."
"When I hear of you doing stupid things like threatening your landlord with a story, then it bothers me. You bother me."
"I can’t take it any more. We are just so embarrassed down here."
"I haven’t been able to poop for two weeks; they call it anismus."
"Women in Africa have their babies while working the fields, then they go straight back to work."
"She coughed, slammed the window shut and made her way to the fridge where she stood naked before the open door in an effort to cool down."
"I understand because I’m going through it too."
"It’s not about how expensive something is – it’s actually about thinking about what to give someone."
"I choose my clients as much as they choose me."
"We helped each other out a lot over the years."
"I just hope I can get this cast off for your father’s birthday."
"I need to know that they care about who they’re giving a gift to, or else how can I possibly care?"
"You need to keep your strength up, or those fuckers will get you down."
"People who believe that they are not interesting, usually are the most interesting of all."
"Startlingly visible yet frustratingly evasive."
"I made a stupid mistake, a really bad, unprofessional mistake, and I ruined a man’s reputation, possibly his life."
"She was used to speaking, comfortable with her anecdotes and recanted them in an interesting way, but it was so constant that her voice – the sheer Caroline-ness of it all – began to bother Kitty."
"Because they were simply beautiful. And she wasn’t."
"But I did. Somehow. And then that day was over and I was facing the night and I said to myself, I cannot face this night. But I did. Somehow."
"With Constance, it’s never about what you think it’s about. Whatever you think is logical, forget about it, it is not logical to Constance."
"She was the one who could drop dead at any moment, the one who wouldn’t live to see her eighteenth birthday."
The main difference is my friends are panicking about the "for ever" part. They have to stay together for ever whereas Diane’s worried because she knows that it can’t be.
"That I would reach the age of eighty-five."
"I prayed at night before I went to bed as routinely as brushing my teeth. I believed in God as much as I believed in germs."
"Love can soften people, I believe that. But in me, now, love riles up an anger, a red-hot rage that crawls on my skin, seeps into my blood and brings out the worst in me."
"They thought the TB would come back. I was brittle, I was fragile, I was not to be treated the same."
"It was only when she went missing for one whole week and we started a public campaign to find her that I remembered Him again."
"It is not easy, I suppose, but it’s not all bad … I usen’t to believe in marriage."
"We’re all dying, dear, and I’m probably a lot closer to it than you."
"I can’t tell you how I feel for you. I can’t pretend that we are only friends."
"You broke my brother’s heart. Once broken, always broken."
"If I can’t write about you, I can’t write the article."
"You have been my best friend since we were kids but I can’t hide it anymore."
"I thought you’d be hiding under a rock."
"Every day when we are together, I feel it inside and I can’t tell you."
"Everybody has a story to tell. That is what links us all, that is what links all the names on the list. Constance’s idea was this: If you were to randomly select one hundred people from a phone directory, you would not only find a story, you would find one hundred stories, because everybody, every single person, has a story to tell."
"Every single ordinary person has an extraordinary story. We might all think that we are unremarkable, that our lives are boring, just because we aren’t doing ground-breaking things or making headlines or winning awards. But the truth is we all do something that is fascinating, that is brave, that is something we should be proud of."
"You make it sound like I’m always getting myself into trouble.’ ‘That’s because you are. And I’m always trying to get you out of it.’"
"The unsung heroes, the people that don’t believe they are heroes at all because they are just doing what they believe they have to do in their lives."
"I don’t think he needed much persuading,’ Kitty smiled. ‘He had his eye on you every time I spoke."
"What I’ve told you about them here is merely an introduction to who these people are. There is so much more for me to say about them, and so much more for you to learn about them."
"This trip has been one of the best, you know,’ she said, and Kitty believed her."
"I hope it works.’ ‘I hope so too.’ Kitty swallowed hard, thinking of the road ahead of her. ‘Thank you, Eva.’"
"‘All you want is for him to forgive you, am I right?’ he asked gently. She swallowed and nodded."
"‘That’s because there’s no such thing as the name O’Logan,’ Molly hissed quietly, and for the first time she saw Eva laugh, though she looked a little guilty for it."