Quotes Novel The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

Original Title: The Girl You Left Behind

Hardcover, 369 pages

Published : August 20th 2013 by Pamela Dorman Books 

ISBN : 0670026611 (ISBN13: 9780670026616)

Edition Language : English

Literary Awards : Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2013)

“Sometimes life is a series of obstacles, a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, she realizes suddenly, it is simply a matter of blind faith.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“There is a whole lot more to life than winning.”

“All that counts is the truth. Without it you're basically just juggling people's daft ideas.” 

“the ability to earn a living by doing the thing one loves must be one of life’s greatest gifts.” 

“Nobody fights you like your own sister; nobody else knows the most vulnerable parts of you and will aim for them without mercy.” 

“Sit here long enough you get to know everything. You listen, see ?"
She taps the side of her head.

"Nobody listens any more. Everyone knows what they want to hear, but nobody actually listens.”

“She does not want to feel even the faintest temptation to call his mobile number, as she had done obsessively for the first year after his death so she could hear his voice on the answering service. Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the Anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“Paul. Look at me. You need to understand this. The worst thing that could have happened to me already happened."

He looks up. She swallows, knowing that these are the words that stall; that may simply refuse to emerge.

"Four years ago David and I went to bed like it was any other night, brushing our teeth reading our books, chatting about a restaurant we were going to the next day...and when I woke up the next morning he was there beside me, cold. Blue. I didn't...I didn't feel him go. I didn't even get to say..."
There is a short silence.

"Can you imagine knowing you slept through the person you love most dying next to you ? Knowing that there might have been something you could have done to help him ? To save him ? Not knowing if he was looking at you, silently begging you to..."

The words fail, her breath catches, a familiar tide threatens to wash over her He reaches out his hands slowly, enfolds hers within them until she can speak again.
"I thought the world had actually ended. I thought nothing good could ever happen again. I thought any thing might happen if I wasn't vigilant. I didn't eat. I didn't go out. I didn't want to see anyone. But I survived, Paul. Much to my own surprise, I got through it. And life...well, life gradually became liveable again."

She leans closer to him.
"So this...the painting, the house...It hit me when I heard what happened to Sophie. It's just stuff. They could take all of it, frankly. the only thing that matters is people."
She looks down at his hands, and her voice cracks.
"All that really matters is who you love.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“It was only when I got home that I reached into my pocket. I found a piece of paper he must have slipped in there while he held me: a little caricature of the two of us, him a huge bear in his uniform, grinning, his arm around me, petite and narrow-waisted, my face straight and solemn, my hair pulled neatly behind my head. Underneath it he had written, in his looping,‘I never knew real happiness until you.” 

“Do you know how it feels to resign yourself to your fate? It is almost welcome. There was to be no more pain, no more fear, no more longing. It is the death of hope that comes as the greatest relief.” 

“Marianne touches his elbow, halting him. 'You know I'll tell you something about being married five times. Or married five times and still friends with my surviving ex-husbands'. She counts them on gnarled fingers. 'That would be three'. He waits. 'It teaches you damn all about love.' Paul begins to smile, but she hasn't finished. Her grip on his arm is surprisingly strong. 'What it does teach you, Mr McCafferty, is that there's a whole lot more to life than winning.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“I thought the world had actually ended. I thought nothing good could ever happen again. I thought anything might happen if I wasn't vigilant. I didn't eat. I didn't go out. I didn't want to see anyone. But I survived, Paul. Much to my own surprise, I got through it. And life...well, gradually became livable again.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day.” 

“Can't you feel this ? Don't walk away...", she wills him silently.
"Please don't walk away from me...” 

“I wanted to live as Edouard did, joyfully, sucking the marrow out of every moment and singing because it tasted so good.”

“Liv runs. Every morning, and some evenings too. Running has taken the place of thinking, of eating, sometimes of sleeping. She runs until her shins burn and her lungs feel as if they will explode...She plugs in her iPod earphones, closes the door of the block, rams her keys into the pocket of her shorts, and sets off at a pace. She lets her mind flood with the deafening thumping beat, dance music so relentless that it leaves no room for thought.” 

“Some lives work better with routines, and Liv Halston's is one of them. Every weekday morning she rises at seven thirty am, pulls on her trainers, grabs her iPod, and before she can think about what she's doing, she heads down, bleary-eyed, in the rackety lift, and out for a half hour run along the river. At some point, threading her way through the grimly determined commuters, swerving round reversing delivery vans, she comes fully awake, her brain slowly wrapping itself around the musical rhythms in her ears, the soft thud-thud-thud of her feet hitting the pavement. Most importantly she has steered herself away again from a time she still fears: those initial waking minutes, when vulnerability means that loss can still strike her unheralded and venal, sending her thoughts into a toxic black fog. She had begin running after she had realized that she could use the world outside, the noise in her earphones, her own motion, as a kind of deflector, Now it has become habit, and insurance police. I do not have to think. I do not have to think. I do not have to think.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“Conned any other women out of their valuables lately ?" she says quietly, so quietly that only he will hear it.
"Nope. I've been too busy stealing handbags and seducing the vulnerable."
Her head shoots up and his eyes lock on hers. He is, she sees with some shock, as furious as she is.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind

“Four hours later Liv wakes in a box room with an Arsenal duet cover and a head that thumps so hard she has to reach up a hand to check she isn't being assaulted. She blinks, stares blearily at the little Japanese cartoon creatures on the wall opposite and lets her mind slowly bring together the pieces of information from the previous night.
Stolen bag...she closes her eyes. Oh, no.
Strange bed...she has no keys. Oh, God she has no keys. And no money. She attempts to move, and pain slices through her head so that she almost yelps.
And then she remembers the man. Pete? Paul? She sees herself walking through deserted streets in the early hours. And then she sees herself lurching forward to kiss him, his own polite retreat.
"You are delicious..."
"Oh, no," she says softly, then puts her hands over her eyes.
"Oh, I didn't..."
She sits up and moves to the side of the bed, noticing a small yellow plastic car near his right foot. Then, when she hears the sound of a door opening, the shower starting up next door, Liv grabs her shoes and her jacket and lets herself out of the flat into the cacophonous daylight.” 

 

“I often think that the ability to earn a living by doing the thing one loves must be one of life’s greatest gifts.”
― Jojo Moyes

“Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else.”
― Jojo Moyes

“This was the story of our lives: minor insurrections, tiny victories, a brief chance to ridicule our oppressors, little floating vessels of hope amid a great sea of uncertainty, deprivation and fear.” 

“So this . . . the painting, the house . . . it hit me when I heard what happened to Sophie earlier. It’s just stuff. They could take all of it, frankly. The only thing that matters is people.” She looks down at his hands, and her voice cracks. “All that really matters is who you love.” 

“Just for carrying on, really. Sometimes, my darling girl, that's heroic in itself.”

― Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behin