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294f5a9
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I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I went to the room in my brain where all my thoughts about Adam lived and disconnected the electricity and boarded up all the doors and windows, so nothing could get out. Obviously it was very unsightly. There were bound to be complaints from the neighboring thoughts. But I had no choice.
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thoughts
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Marian Keyes |
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0074c63
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If you lose someone, you feel a loss, then after a while you fill in the hole in your life and the loss gradually gets smaller and smaller and eventually goes away. There's a point to the pain. There's a reason and a direction.
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pain
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Marian Keyes |
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46c2907
|
It was only when the salt water of my tears ran into my cuts and made them sting that I discovered I was crying.
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Marian Keyes |
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7abb271
|
Minsk! How pissed-off that sounded! It was great. You could scare the bejayzus out of someone if you said it right.
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swear-words
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Marian Keyes |
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bc00394
|
My life was a wreck. I had nothing, no material possessions, unless debts counts. Fourteen pairs of shoes that were too small for me was all I had to show after a lifetime of profligate spending. I hadn't a job. I hadn't any qualifications. I'd achieved nothing with my life. I'd never been happy. I had no husband or boyfriend.
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sadness
self-esteem
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Marian Keyes |
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1574afb
|
You only grow up by living through the shit that life throws at you
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Marian Keyes |
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c6709eb
|
You have a magnificent moustache. You must be very proud of it.
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Marian Keyes |
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14c6fa8
|
Get over it, and if you can't get over it, get over talking about it.
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Marian Keyes |
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cab085e
|
He seemed wild and dangerous and carefree--well, he would, would'nt he? What were motorcycles and black leather pants if not the uniform of a wild, dangerous and carefree man?
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Marian Keyes |
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96b7d3a
|
When I opened my case in the hotel, he gestured excitedly at my snakeskin sandals, turquoise suede wedges and silver-speckled jellies. "But you've loads of shoes," he bellowed joyfully. I shook my head sadly. Men just don't get it, do they? They're definitely missing the shoe chromosome."
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men
relationships
shopping
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Marian Keyes |
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b901acf
|
Todays uplifting phrase is "love your body exactly as it is. Yout think it is imperfect and you're right, but its only goning to get worse."
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Marian Keyes |
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bf2f27c
|
The ability to talk to other people seemed to be leaking out of me like air out of an old balloon.
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Marian Keyes |
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ea9b4b8
|
The last time I'd been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps: The Let's Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, 'Feeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?' The Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the p..
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Marian Keyes |
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42ed3df
|
In the same way that the stewards of the Titanic were more concerned about the unemptied ashtrays on the bar than the enormous hole in the side of the ship which was letting in zillions of gallons of water, I too was worrying about the unimportant and ignoring the vital.
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worrying
|
Marian Keyes |
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25400ef
|
My friend Kathy is the only person who'll be halfway honest with me. 'Did you ever see a cowboy film, where someone has been caught by the Indians and tied between two wild stallions, each pulling in opposite directions?' she asked. I nodded mutely. 'That's a bit what giving birth is like.
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humor
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Marian Keyes |
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563338e
|
Devereaux is going with our pitch." "Hey, that's just great," I said superperkily. "Wendell's or mine?" "Yours." "But you want to fire me. So fire me." "We can't fire you. They loved you. The head guy, Leonard Daly, thought you were, I quote, 'a great kid, very courageous' and a natural to do a whispering campaign. He said you had believability." "That's too bad." "Why? You're not quitting!" I thought about it. "Not if you don't want me to...
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inspiration
job
promotion
power
|
Marian Keyes |
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5955a30
|
He'd done his walls with paint from Holy Basil. God, I yearned for their colors. I hadn't been able to afford them myself but I knew their color chart like the back of my hand. His hall was done in Gangrene, his stairs in Agony and his living room--unless I was very much mistaken--in Dead Whale. Colors I personally very much approved of.
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humor
setting-the-scene
way-with-words
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Marian Keyes |
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9eb35b2
|
That's the thing with relationships, I understood: it doesn't mean we don't hurt one another; how can we help it sometimes, we're only human. But if you love someone, you get hurt and you manage to forgive. And be forgiven.
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Marian Keyes |
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2facd29
|
Our health is our wealth.
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Marian Keyes |
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6e64c07
|
Survival was an unpleasent thing to witness.
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Marian Keyes |
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1d73424
|
Worse, neither of us has liked any of the other's Facebook posts, the modern equivalent of pistols at dawn.
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Marian Keyes |
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364a6f0
|
I should have learned mindfulness, and it's too late now because it's no good learning it when you're already in crisis: you have to start when things are good. But only the very, very oddest would think, Hey, my life is perfect. I know! I'll sit and waste twenty minutes Observing My Thoughts without Judgement.
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thoughts
humour
mindfulness
self-deprecation
distraction
crisis
worry
|
Marian Keyes |
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54f278b
|
It was just that this was real life and no decision was clearly sign-posted. It's not like you take the right turning and you get everlasting happiness and you take the wrong one and you're life's a disaster. In real life it's often almost impossible to tell which decision is the one you should make because what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose are sometimes--often--neck and neck.
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Marian Keyes |
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13e7101
|
Talk is cheap, but look at how people behave, not at what they say.
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Marian Keyes |
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ca479f6
|
If it is made with love, the imperfect becomes perfect.
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|
Marian Keyes |
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1da90c7
|
People don't tend to employ me. I'm the wrong personality type. Or rather, people do tend to employ me for a short time and then they sack me. A film broker once told me, as she terminated my contract, that I have a misleading sort of face. "You're pretty", she complained. "Your features are symmetrical and there was an article in Grazia that says human beings are programmed to find those with symmetrical features more pleasing to they eye..
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humorous
turn-of-phrase
way-with-words
|
Marian Keyes |
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38a18fc
|
Drink never drown anyone's sorrows," he went on. "It only teaches them how to swim."
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Marian Keyes |
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3b54c1f
|
freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
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Marian Keyes |
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7be043b
|
Are you close to your family?' I considered it. 'Close' was one way of putting it. 'We're close,' I said cautiously. 'But we're very mean to each other. This morning I told my mum that if she didn't stop acting old I was going to lobby for a law on euthanasia, so a bus would come round every Monday morning and take away all the old people who complained that they couldn't hear the telly or see the buttons on their mobile phone or that they ..
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Marian Keyes |
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a007ec4
|
Back at my parents', Mum was waiting with a muffin for me. 'Banana and pecan. I know it's the wrong colour but would you try it? Are you okay?' she asked. 'You look a bit ...' 'Grand,' I said. 'It's just the clouds. When it's overcast like this, it does my head in.' A strange expression passed over her face. 'The sky is blue.' I took a look out of the window; the sky was blue. 'When did that happen?' 'It's been blue all morning.' But it did..
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Marian Keyes |
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8cc964a
|
The Chinese word for "crisis" also means "opportunity."
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Marian Keyes |
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9ad1974
|
The stars are always there, even in the daytime. Sometimes we just can't see them.
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Marian Keyes |
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07f5dd8
|
Insomnia is an enemy that attacks in many forms. Sometimes it shows up the moment I get into bed and lingers for a couple of hours. Other nights, it stays away until about 5 a.m. and then butts in and hangs around until twenty minutes before the alarm is due to go off. It's a full-time job, battling the fecker.
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Marian Keyes |
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356ec71
|
Human touch is as important as water and food and air and laughter and new shoes.
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Marian Keyes |
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069a5e3
|
A large battalion of my thoughts was marching determinedly on its way to Annoyance but it was distracted and took a wrong turn at Adam and found, to its surprise, that it had ended up in the entirely different destination of Dreamy Contentment.
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Marian Keyes |
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7594ab9
|
I knew then that life was no respecter of circumstance. The force that flings disasters at us doesn't say " Well, I won't give her that lump in her breast for another year. Best to let her recover from the death of her mother first." It just goes right on ahead and does whatever it feels like, whenever it feels like it."
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|
Marian Keyes |
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152ed53
|
Reality had run and got Sanity.
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Marian Keyes |
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951eef5
|
It is my honour to act as your ceiling
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Marian Keyes |
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12f0bf0
|
I'm seized by sudden horrible fear - the thought of living without carbs is terrifying.
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|
Marian Keyes |
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759f694
|
I need you to get inside Wayne's head. I need someone who thinks a bit left field and in your own unpleasant way, Helen Walsh, you're a genius. He had a point. I'm lazy and illogical. I've limited people skills. I'm easily bored and easily irritated. But I have moments of brilliance. They come and they go and I can't depend on them but they do happen.
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humorous
turn-of-phrase
|
Marian Keyes |
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7d4de80
|
The landscape of the desert changes very gradually as little breezes lift grains of sand and move them, sometimes a few feet, sometimes miles and miles, so that at the end of the day, when the sun sets, the face of the desert is completely different from the landscape it had in the morning when the sun rose on it.
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Marian Keyes |
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b35ced5
|
I know forty-one is the new eighteen, but tell that to my metabolism.
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|
Marian Keyes |
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c10a2ca
|
Where does love go when it dies? Into flowers and other beautiful things? Back out into the universe to be recycled?
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|
love
|
Marian Keyes |
|
1021d63
|
In the same way that the stewards on the Titanic were more concerned about the unemptied ashtrays on the bar than the enormous hole in the side of the ship which was letting in zillions of gallons of water, I too was worrying about the unimportant and ignoring the vital. Sometimes it's easier that way. Because although there was little I could do about the huge hole, it was within my power to empty an asthray.
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worry
|
Marian Keyes |