Insomnia Quotes
"It's not a complete thought, but something feral, more instinctive."
"My skin has prickled. Something woke me. Not a dream. Something else."
"I feel very small as I look along the central corridor, the gloom making it appear endless."
"People always seem to be hastier to exit a marriage than they ever were to get into one."
"I'm sure that stupid computer program doesn't always log everything right."
"You look so much like her. Like she was then."
"She’s a fragile seventy-five-year-old woman with a severe brain bleed who’s barely done more than shuffle and mumble in decades."
"No one cares anymore, Emma. About what she did."
"Maybe seeing her would do you some good. Give you some closure."
"You’re forty in a week or so. You’ve always been afraid of that."
"Your forties are going to be your decade of power."
"It’s the patriarchy that makes women worry about getting older. You should embrace it."
"We see enough of them during the week, don’t we?"
"True enough. How did you get on with the last lot of spellings?"
"The Parker Stockwell divorce. There was a piece in the local rag."
"That could have been nasty. What you did was mean."
"The sisterhood is about allowing women to be whatever they choose to be."
"Everything’s always about you, isn’t it? Heaven forbid we upset baby Emma."
"I don’t have the energy to shag my own husband, I’m certainly not making time to shag yours."
"You’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard that before, and then people have changed their minds."
"I almost drop the small machine as I gasp. The whispering continues and I’m sure the temperature in the room drops slightly with each word."
"Despite having pushed the joys of therapy onto Michelle in my office, I can’t sum up the will to make a call on my own behalf."
"When did things shift from her asking us if she could go out to telling us?"
"I wait until she’s left the room and then I retch slightly, my head spinning."
"How long before her fortieth birthday did she stop sleeping?"
"I feel like an echo as I drift up to the grainy darker upstairs corridor."
"Vodka at three thirty in the morning is not a good idea. I know that, but I’m all out of good ideas."
"I’m nearly fifty. Perspective is a great thing."
"She’s spent the past thirty years or so in a secure unit. But she died yesterday."
"No wonder you’re stressed. That’s an awful lot to be dealing with. All things considered, I think you’re coping admirably."
"There’s no obligation to love someone, even a relative—you can still be experiencing grief."
"I actually feel a bit better already. Aside from the shattering tiredness."
"Sometimes I feel, well, that I have to hold everything together for everyone and it gets overwhelming."
"Husbands and children can be a money drain too."
"You think everything is easy for me. That it’s not fair that I have this and you have nothing, but that’s just your excuse to yourself."
"I’m so terrified that for a moment I’m convinced that the figure crouching there is her."
"But the thing about secrets is that you can’t tell anyone about them. Not even Daddy. Okay?"
"You’ve got these secrets you’ve been keeping from us—I had a grandmother who was alive all these years for one—and you’ve been acting weird and looking like complete shit for about a week, and now the police have been here clearly thinking you’ve done something wrong, and we’re all acting as if that’s perfectly normal."
"I would rather you billed me," I repeat for about the third time. He’s acting like it was no bother to come out and that he wasn’t busy, but I know that’s not true.
"Art. That will be Phoebe’s doing. Maybe if she learned to be less uptight her own paintings would have more soul."
"I’m being carried on a wave of what will be, will be."
"We knew then—even me—that something was very wrong."
"I wanted to run out that door and never come back."
"It’s the obvious explanation here. What would you believe?"
"I’m trying to forget her," I say defensively. "She’s dead."
"Trying to forget her isn’t working that well for you. Perhaps what you need is to try to understand her."
"What did she think, if she ever thought of us? Did anybody out there care about what happened to her? Did she have any other friends?"
"Trust me, even very locked-in patients, like your mother sometimes was, have ways of showing if they like a nurse or not."
"I love the summer. I think my head would be all right if it was always summer."
"I am not mad. I have not had a psychotic break. I am not out of touch with reality."
"It's like you've, I don't know, suddenly cracked. All this shit about Auntie Phoebe. You're acting so weird. Not sleeping."
"How can I? It's like you've, I don't know, suddenly cracked. All this shit about Auntie Phoebe. You're acting so weird. Not sleeping."
"The cake is sticky in my mouth and I tilt my head to the sun. I’ve got time."
"Why, Phoebe? What did I ever do to you? Apart from save your life?"
"Keep breathing, Phoebe," I whisper. "Please."
"Is this how my mother felt? Were these thoughts she had? What am I capable of? Do I really know? Am I the thing I dread?"
"You don’t know anything about how I’m feeling," I snap. "And as for my birthday, I’m very well aware of that."
"Oh, fuck off." I spit the words back loud enough for the police to hear, but I’m past caring.
"Tomorrow. It’s finally here after all these years. And here I am, turning into my mother."
"I may look slightly tired but other than that I can pass for normal, I imagine."
"As if your genes know which number sibling you are? It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?"
"Maybe if she helps me understand the past, I can shake this fear that I’m going to repeat it."
"She was filled with dread. Specifically, for you."
"She was like a statue, just staring out at the garden, her hands pressed against the glass, her mouth open."
"Memories are like time, constantly slipping from our grasp."
"I loved Patricia, but if I’d thought you were in any danger, I’d have called the social services in a heartbeat."
"I’m my mother’s daughter. The second child. Somewhere deep in my mind, I’ve remembered it all and now I’m repeating it."
"We rely on it so heavily for everything we know about ourselves and those around us, but actually we remember so little."
"Time once again folds in on itself, me and my mother, mirror reflections of each other."
"I can’t be sure of anything. I didn’t push Phoebe though, and this makes me feel stronger."
"I know what she did and I will not repeat the mistakes of the past."
"But still, even after hearing all this, my body hums with paranoia that someone is out to hurt me or my family."
"All of this persecution complex is simply a product of my own paranoia. No one is coming for me. I am the only danger with my second-child madness from dirty blood."
"I don’t want to bump into the police coming the other way, so I head up toward the geriatric department, because I know the way out to the car park from there."
"Everything falls into place as I think of the disabled bathroom Caroline hasn’t updated yet, from sharing a house with her mother."
"Sometimes the night is the only time any of us can truly be ourselves."
"You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
"I’ve been so worried about repeating the past, but what if I’ve been looking at it all the wrong way around?"
"It’s very calming to be the only person awake in a dark house."
"Choices, broken-backed / Become the facts / Distract the heart from the hand / That signs it off."
"We look for meaning in everything and maybe there isn’t any. A glitch in time with no purpose. The random chaos of the universe."
"A symbol. A circular image of a snake eating its own tail. Where does the snake begin and where does it end? It’s an endless loop. A paradox."