The Lost Bookshop Quotes
"I let my fingers run along the spine of the book, letting the indentations of the embossed cover guide my skin to something tangible; something that I believed in more than the fiction that was playing out before me."
"There are only two options open to a woman your age. One is to marry, and the other to find a post in keeping with her gentility."
"If you tilt your head, you can hear the older books whispering their secrets."
"I refuse to marry a man I’ve never even met purely to aid the family finances. The whole idea is preposterous!"
"In the course of your life, you’ll spend six months looking for missing objects."
"Who is to say what treasures are yet to be rediscovered, what lost things are waiting to be brought to light?"
"The world fell silent, the way it often does the moment before a life-changing decision."
"My journey to Dublin had begun a week previously and from the other side of the country, at a lonely bus stop just outside the village."
"You’re on your own in this world. No one is coming to save you."
"Unlike the movies, you don’t just leave your home, your marriage and everything you knew and simply start a new life. There is a bit in between where you’re just breathing – like a drowning man who clings to a rock."
"I should’ve been on a flight back to the UK days ago."
"If no one takes you seriously, how can you ever hope to do so yourself?"
"As I stood on the deck, I put my case by my feet and looked out at the horizon."
"I was bringing shame to them both, but I had no choice. It was their pride or my future and I could not, would not, sacrifice myself on the altar of their expectations."
"Your room is something akin to a monastic cell! I would like – je voudrais une chambre plus grande. Avec une fenêtre!"
"It’s funny how people complain about boredom. God, how I ached for a boring day when I was living with Shane and his unpredictable moods."
"The only establishment that could rival a bookshop or a library, in my opinion, was a good stationery shop."
"I felt my shoulders relax and my nose picked up that distinctive scent of paper, leather and ink."
"Behind the counter were leather satchels that brought to mind Hemingway’s lost novel."
"That’s what every MA Lit student assumed as they strolled around campus with an exact replica slung over their shoulder."
"‘Just a little humour, no need to be alarmed.’"
"‘It means that one sees clearly only with the heart.’"
"I don’t care what anyone said, quoting Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was impressive in any man’s language."
"‘Of course, I should call you Lord Bingley,’ he said, ushering us both ahead of him and into a grand-looking foyer."
"‘I’ve never heard anyone so hyped up about … anything!’"
"‘A book is so much more than a delivery vehicle for its contents,’ he continued, hands gesticulating wildly."
"‘I think Ireland could suit you down to the ground.’"
"‘I’m afraid Mr Fitzpatrick died two months ago. We were going to put the place up for sale …’"
"I thought of the day my two girlfriends came home to find me hiding in the wardrobe in my room."
"‘I have to put some distance between myself and Matthew.’"
"Choosing not to do something was still a choice."
"‘After love, book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all.’"
"‘I belong to myself,’ I said, tired of placating him."
"‘You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem,’ my mother shouted."
"‘It was night and the candles were lit as I dined alone on a passable meal of turbot in the dining room.’"
"Furious barking of a mastiff; my father’s old dog bounded into the room and had her pinned to the floor, his eyes glowing and his fangs protruding."
"Being tormented by a love of art but not possessing the talent to succeed at it, had yielded nothing more than a reduction in my pecuniary resources."
"Harnessing my passion, the bristles of my brush scratched feverishly against the linen canvas."
"It was a rough outline of a story about an Anglo-Irish landowner, Egerton Talbot, who had fallen in love with one of his tenants, Rose, set against the backdrop of the Irish Famine."
"Some scholars even argued that Heathcliff himself, ‘a dirty, ragged, black-haired child’, who spoke a kind of ‘gibberish’ was Irish and labelled a savage and a demon."
"You might not think it matters now, but trust me, in time you’ll wish you had taken what is rightfully yours. Think of it as compensation."
"I couldn’t – wouldn’t – let that happen again."
"‘Exactly,’ I said, slightly out of breath. ‘He gets it.’"
"My heart sank, but I kept the smile frozen on my face."
"I put a saucepan of milk on the little stove and made myself a hot chocolate with two spoons of Nutella, an old trick my mother used to do for me when I was a child."
"‘Do men like you ever realise the hurt you cause, flitting in and out of people’s lives? No, I suppose not. That would require some sort of intellect.’"
"Secrets are all very well and good, but having a fake name, a hidden pregnancy, a forgotten manuscript and forbidden feelings were all making for a very complicated and lonely existence."
"‘I want you to keep something safe for me.’ I reached into my back and removed the sewing box – contents still intact."
"I whispered Matthew’s name, over and over. He would come and find me, surely. Somehow. I knew he would. I couldn’t stay here."
"‘Please, try not to upset yourself, Opaline.’"
"‘It was all I could do not to fall into his arms and, but for the fact that Mr Ravel was beside me, I dare say I would have.’"
"‘I am not questioning your ability, I am simply being realistic. It’s the world we live in.’"
"‘Of course we could always forgo the niceties and head straight for the brandy.’ She nodded towards a little drinks caddy by the fireplace and I poured us two healthy measures of amber liquid."
"‘I have no right to tell you this and clearly had no part in it, but you’ve grown into a fine man. Henry. Son.’"
"I suppose all Germans were conscripted."
"My mother has passed away, I repeated internally. I was an orphan, I realised, in some abstract way. Childless. Motherless."
"I don’t know how long I lay on that bed, if it was cold or warm, or if I was alone or in company. All of my senses were dulled by one overwhelming urge – to hold my baby."
"It was true that I had been closer to my father, and my mother was never affectionate towards me. But I had to assume that there was some love there. Not enough, clearly."
"You see, the thing is, Dr Lynch, I no longer care if I live or die."
"It’s not something serious ... but it might help you to understand the past. My past."
"I don’t know how she survived. But she must have – we have the letter to Sylvia which proves that."
"I am a prisoner of war,' he said with a flourish, as though he were announcing that he had royal blood."
"Intimacy is only one string on the bow. The instrument still plays the music."
"I could feel his breath and watched as he let his eyes close."
"We felt like one person and I knew that no matter what happened, I had met my true soulmate."
"Lost does not mean gone forever. Lost is a bridge between worlds."
"Hope is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all."
"Maybe it was I who was lost all along and not the bookshop."
"You can let people in sometimes, you know. You don’t have to do everything on your own."
"Every stupid, seemingly pointless, difficult, lonely, challenging thing I had done in my life before this had led me here, to Ha'penny Lane."
"I am not afraid of you anymore. What more could you do to me?"
"‘The world needs to know who Lyndon Carlisle really is. I offered up my own story - Commanding Officer Carlisle, The Reaper, had his own sister locked up in an asylum for the insane.’"