Looking For Jane Quotes
"Careful not to disturb her wife’s Sunday morning lie-in, she tiptoes to the kitchen, where she washes down a painkiller with a glass of pulpy orange juice, toasts a bagel, and slathers it with too much garlic cream cheese."
"But the light is making her wince and her head is throbbing like a bullet wound behind her eyes."
"The stakes are starting to feel higher every time an insemination treatment or a pregnancy fails."
"It smells like furniture polish, coffee, and that dusty scent of old books that’s both rotten and enormously appealing."
"There’s always a bit of buried treasure to be discovered in here."
"Her heart bleeds for all three of these women: the daughter Nancy; her mother Frances, who carried the weight of this secret for so long only to have the confession go astray; and Margaret Roberts, scribbling in a hidden note that she was forced to give her baby up for adoption…"
"But tonight, the sound seems to echo off the walls of the quiet subway station with eerie magnitude."
"Normally it’s a sound Nancy quite likes. It’s the sound of going places."
"They promise as much privacy as possible. Mind your own business, and do not ask questions."
"But tonight it feels like she and Clara are groping blindly with only the vaguest sense of direction."
"These walls have absorbed many years’ worth of anguished cries. Whispered pleas and prayers."
"I guess I’d like to be able to put broken things back together."
"Dr. Evelyn Taylor," Maggie says slowly. "It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?"
"You are fulfilling the needs and desires of women who are not able to bear children," Father Leclerc continues, "which is also God’s will."
"Your parents had the reception back at our house, your Grandpapa and I," Grandmama continues. "A simple affair, but that’s what people did in those days."
"A mother just has an inherent need to feed the child she loves."
"She swallows on a tight throat, considers whether to abandon this reconnaissance mission, which in all likelihood will turn up nothing at all."
"Furniture gets rearranged to cover stains and the wear from foot traffic on the carpet."
"The pain leaks through all the tiniest cracks. It seeps up from between the worn floorboards like floodwater, muddy with silt and carrying the stench of regret."
"But the barbed edges of those thoughts hook into their minds and latch on."
"She can’t keep up. What’s a—what you just said?"
"My name is Margaret Roberts, and I am your mother."
"You can be strong again. You have it in you. I’ve seen it."
"It’s very difficult. But given time, things usually start to look a little brighter."
"You can put all this behind you. You can… move on."
"I need you to help me find out where she is."
"As long as the male sex continues to exist, there will always be a need."
"Every child a wanted child! Every mother a willing mother!"
"We’ll never stop looking for them, Evelyn. We will find them. We just have to be patient."
"You’re going to go, aren’t you? Well, yes. I think I have to."
"This window behind my head is made of bulletproof glass."
"She’s crusty on the outside with a soft centre, like a well-made croissant."
"Word isn’t going to get out much further than a few degrees of removal from you and me."
"We can’t help everyone, but we could be helping more."
"Marrying you would mean that I could enjoy a lifetime’s supply of your lemon shortbread biscuits, and that alone is worth the commitment."
"No commitment can ever be total because life is full of impossibles and yet."
"I just figured, if I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore, that I’d have to do one of those things you hear about, you know, like using a knitting needle."
"That was always one of our commitments, our goals. But one or two have fallen through the cracks."
"The departing soul holds the words out to her."
"The most important thing you can do for us both is to stay calm."
"We can’t offer it if we’re in prison. And neither can these Janes."
"The less you say, the better. Just play along and don't act surprised by anything Alice or I say."
"I can tell you're a brave woman. We'll get through this together."
"In my experience, men like these guys are thoroughly freaked out by anything to do with a vagina that isn't sex."
"If you do get an infection, call me right away. Do not go to the hospital."
"The Janes can only continue to exist if we're not all in prison."
"We stole their babies. And she sold them. Even the ones who'd been raped."
"There’s something about a snowy weekend that feels like a freebie; like the earth is saying, Slow down, enjoy yourself, there’s nowhere to go anyway."
"My best friend at the Home—I’ll call her 'Maggie'—took her own life after the trauma she experienced at that place. I lost both my best friend and my daughter to lack of choice, and I knew, after I left, that I would find a way to make sure other girls would always—always—have a choice."
"I was kind of thinking about forever. I think forever is next."
"I love you, Nancy Mitchell. Will you marry me?"
"To Nancy and Michael, may the road rise to meet you."
"The moment stretches out until the silence is shattered by an aggressive beeping issuing from the phone receiver in her hand."
"She lays the receiver back down on its cradle, breathes in deeply, then lets it all out in a long stream."
"Recklessness is a youthful indulgence. She has to be responsible and sensible now."
"What if this ad was placed by Margaret Roberts? She has to try."
"This is the rare book library. Miss Mitchell speaking."
"The ivory satin dress has billowing, puffy sleeves that make Nancy feel like a football player."
"It’s just such high fashion, dear. Of course you feel strange in it."
"You’re supposed to feel a bit odd in your wedding dress."
"I could hardly breathe in it, I needed to sit down."
"Once a secret is out there, there’s no reeling it back in."
"You can control the internal damage caused by keeping secrets far easier than the external damage."
"It’s both soothing and devastating to know that she isn’t alone in this lifelong struggle."
"There is nothing like clearing out your dead mother’s house to make you wonder whether you ever knew her at all."
"We were never in control. And this is something I can do to be in control."
"Go, Maggie, go!" she says, breathless. "Just run and keep running. Go!"
"She craves peace and quiet and solitude and an end to the chaos."
"Her mind can finally be blank. That’s what she wants now. Darkness and silence."
"The shame that I had committed suicide meant there was no funeral."
"But this is far worse than I imagined. It’s so real now."
"Jane," she whispers into her daughter’s hair.