The Lonely Hearts Book Club Quotes
"You don’t have to read anything you don’t want to."
"I’m not naive. I know things. I read things."
"Sometimes, the only thing you could give a person was a companion to lie under the covers with them and read late into the night."
"Bacon is a gift from the gods, and we should treat it with the respect it deserves."
"I might not have crossed off all the items on my bucket list, but I was only twenty-seven."
"You haven’t known true peace until you’ve drifted off to Proust read aloud in B-flat."
"It’s another beautiful day, don’t you think?"
"Finding pleasure in reading—losing myself in a story—was the one thing I did know."
"It’s not ideal, but it should hold," Maisey said as she finished wrapping a bandage around his finger.
"What I want is to be left alone," Arthur grumbled, but without much enthusiasm.
"Right-o. I’ll catch you on the flip side. Toodles!"
"That tea sounds nice," he admitted as soon as it ended. His voice was so weak that I had to strain to hear him.
"I don’t need a nurse," he opened one eye and leveled it on me.
"I can take care of myself," he asserted, still under a coughing fit.
"Of course not," I responded, acknowledging his independence.
"I promised him I’d be back as soon as my shift’s over," I said, fixating on a patch of exposed brickwork.
"Books are more reliable than you'll ever be."
"All the books in the world won't save you from yourself."
"I have a freezer in my basement that would easily fit Arthur's body."
"Maisey, you can't kid about things like that! I'm emotionally vulnerable right now."
"I started pulling out the makings of a salad even though Arthur had very determinedly informed me yesterday that salads 'are what food eats.'"
"The fact is, of course, I gave my best to Lord Darlington. I gave him the very best I had to give, and now—well—I find I do not have a great deal more left to give."
"I had stopped eating, not because of Arnold, but to be fashionably anorexic like all the other thirteen-year-old girls."
"It's like you can't stand being loved for even a second."
"The great Althea Sharpe? How strange. I had no idea she cared so much."
"You’re the librarian who’s always trying to get me to sign up to take needlepoint classes when I check out my books. Do I look like I want to take needlepoint classes?"
"If Arthur McLachlan’s involved, heightened tensions are a guarantee."
"The only thing I was good at was pretending I knew what I was doing."
"The sound of Bella’s voice woke me just after dawn."
"You might as well have us read cookbooks and be done with it."
"I doubt I could get Brett back here under any conditions. He’s not…happy with the way I’m handling things."
"The whole Sharpe family is known for their dramatic flair."
"Like it or not—and I wasn’t sure that I did—I was an official coconspirator now."
"Fine. Go to your boss tomorrow and tell her I’ll double that woman’s donation, provided no one asks me to join one of their stupid classes again."
"If I’d have known how easily you’d all pander to rich eccentrics, I’d have done this years ago."
"Turtlenecks always make my neck look so short."
"You used me. Puffed me up with importance and then deflated me like a catheter balloon."
"All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way."
"What kind of librarian has a stethoscope in the trunk of his car?"
"If you want me dead, you’re going to have to hire a hit man like everybody else."
"He hates hearing how good he is. He hates everything associated with the stage, actually."
"False modesty is something I have no patience for."
"You’re never anything except what you advertise."
"Life stories were written in ink, not pencil. Once they were down, the only thing you could do was turn the page."
"I’m sorry," I said. "I’m not very good at this."
"You’re taking advantage of her generosity, and you know it."
"It’s the only thing in this world that does."
"Friendship existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, in spite of—or perhaps because of—their dissimilarity."
"You love this world, and you love the people in it. I know you do."
"When your friend is in the hospital, you go. When the people you care about are hurting, you take care of them."
"You’re the one thing I knew would stay the same no matter what chaos was happening around you."
"We’re doing better with the threats of violence lately, but, yeah. Probably."
"I know it took me a while to warm up to you, but I mean it when I say our house isn’t going to be the same without you."
"She felt something like shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of gladness when she saw them."
"Life was calling to me—it had been calling to me for years—but it had taken this random, beautiful collection of people for me to realize what I had to do."