Top 250 Alex Michaelides Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “I felt such humility and gratitude for every second we spent together. I was aware how lucky, how incredibly fortunate I was to have such love, how rare it was, and how others weren’t so lucky.”

— Alex Michaelides

202. “Adesea luam dragostea drept un foc de artificii – drept spectacol si ceva iesit din comun. Insa iubirea adevarata e foarte tacuta, foarte linistita. E plictistoare daca privesti din perspectiva spectaculosului. Iubirea e profunda si calma – si constanta.”

— Alex Michaelides

203. “How unfortunate for him that you’re such an ethical man.”

— Alex Michaelides

204. “Maybe there’s a clue on her phone? Or her laptop? Let’s try and get into her room – ” Mariana shook her head. “We can’t do that, Zoe.” “Why not?”

— Alex Michaelides

205. “Sometimes I think – No. I won’t write about that.”

— Alex Michaelides

206. “Alicia had painted a redbrick building, a hospital – unmistakably the Grove. It was on fire, burning to the ground. Two figures were discernible on the fire escape. A man and a woman escaping the fire. The woman was unmistakably Alicia, her red hair the same color as the flames. I recognized the man as myself. I was carrying Alicia in my arms, holding her aloft while the fire licked at my ankles.”

— Alex Michaelides

207. “Our character was formed without our even knowing it. In my case, I grew up feeling edgy, afraid, anxious.”

— Alex Michaelides

208. “I had no choice but to go on.”

— Alex Michaelides

209. “I didn’t know it then, but it was too late – I had internalized him, buried him deep in my unconscious. No matter how far I ran, I carried him with me wherever I went. I was pursued by an infernal, relentless chorus of furies, all with his voice – shrieking that I was worthless, shameful, a failure.”

— Alex Michaelides

210. “It’s hard to imagine two more different women than Kathy or Alicia. Kathy makes me think of light, warmth, colour and laughter. When I think of Alicia, I think only of depth, of darkness, of sadness. Of silence.”

— Alex Michaelides

211. “My father’s unpredictable and arbitrary rages made any situation, no matter how benign, into a potential minefield.”

— Alex Michaelides

212. “Rage, like fear, is reactive in nature.”

— Alex Michaelides

213. “Was God punishing me? Why? What was I guilty of- except falling in love?”

— Alex Michaelides

214. “During the trial, the judge took a dim view of Alicia’s persistent refusal to speak. Innocent people, Mr. Justice Alverstone pointed out, tended to proclaim their innocence loudly – and often. Alicia not only remained silent, but she showed no visible signs of remorse. She didn’t cry once throughout the trial – a fact made much of in the press – her face remaining unmoved, cold. Frozen.”

— Alex Michaelides

215. “I also learned, from a young age, that I did not walk on the ground – but on a narrow network of invisible ropes, suspended above the earth. I had to navigate them carefully, trying not to slip or fall. Certain aspects of my personality were offensive, it seemed. I had terrible secrets to hide – even I didn’t know what they were. My.”

— Alex Michaelides

216. “Mariana no longer saw the world in color. Life was muted and gray and far away, behind a veil – behind a mist of sadness.”

— Alex Michaelides

217. “I’ve never been that comfortable with words – I always think in pictures, express myself with images.”

— Alex Michaelides

218. “You can’t love someone if you’re afraid of them, Mariana. I know it’s hard to hear. It’s a kind of blindness – but unless you wake up and see clearly, it will persist throughout your whole life, affecting how you see yourself, and others too.”

— Alex Michaelides

219. “Surely now was the time to begin faking that recovery? To utter a few words here and there, then a few more; to slowly communicate some kind of remorse? But no. Week followed week, month followed month, then the years passed – and still Alicia didn’t speak.”

— Alex Michaelides

220. “It felt as if a kind of pestilence, a plague, were spreading through the college – as in a Greek myth, the sickness that destroyed Thebes; an invisible airborne poison drifting through the courtyards – and these ancient walls, once a refuge from the outside world, no longer offered any protection.”

— Alex Michaelides

221. “Clarissa gave her the postcard with a smile. “Persephone was rather a vengeful goddess, as I’m sure you know.”

— Alex Michaelides

222. “To be honest, I can’t really see.”

— Alex Michaelides

223. “As soon as any group establishes itself, it always arouses envy and attack – and not just from forces on the outside, those excluded from the group, but also from dark and dangerous forces within the group itself.”

— Alex Michaelides

224. “You’d shoot him five times in the head, without possibly even knowing why.”

— Alex Michaelides

225. “I couldn’t tell if I were feeling Paul’s sadness – or my own.”

— Alex Michaelides

226. “But it made me even more determined to succeed.”

— Alex Michaelides

227. “Theres something there that I need to think about. I’m not sure exactly what yet.”

— Alex Michaelides

228. “Although she didn’t know it at the time, she was already so deeply in love, there was no way out again. On some level, they became each other – they joined, like mercury.”

— Alex Michaelides

229. “All she had were some books, a few drawings, her clothes.”

— Alex Michaelides

230. “An intimate kitchen-sink tragedy.”

— Alex Michaelides

231. “You’re wrong about my father,” she said. “I know he’s difficult – but he loves me. And I love him.” “No,” said Ruth firmly. “At best, let’s call it a desire to be loved. At worst, it’s a pathological attachment to a narcissistic man: a melting pot of gratitude, fear, expectation, and dutiful obedience that has nothing to do with love in the true sense of the word. You don’t love him. Nor do you know or love yourself.”

— Alex Michaelides

232. “But remember, with greater feeling comes greater danger.”

— Alex Michaelides

233. “You’re so thin, there’s nothing left of you. I’m so jealous.”

— Alex Michaelides

234. “For a terrifying second I thought he was going to throw me out off the roof.”

— Alex Michaelides

235. “Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.”

— Alex Michaelides

236. “And we simply sat in silence.”

— Alex Michaelides

237. “An ancient cat lay asleep by her feet, the ugliest cat I’d ever seen – battle scarred, bald in places, one ear bitten off. It was growling in its sleep.”

— Alex Michaelides

238. “Edward Fosca had written it – this hellish love letter – and he had written it to Zoe.”

— Alex Michaelides

239. “How terrifying that must be for a child, how traumatising – how your sense of self-worth would implode; and the pain would be too great, too huge to feel, so you’d swallow it, repress it, bury it. Over time you would lose contact with the origins of your trauma, dissociate the roots of its cause, and forget. But one day, all the hurt and anger would burst forth, like fire from a dragon’s belly – and you’d pick up a gun.”

— Alex Michaelides

240. “I felt desperately sorry for her, and those like her – for all of us, all the wounded and the lost.”

— Alex Michaelides

241. “Christian stared at me for a few seconds. I’d forgotten his habit of pausing, often lengthily, making you wait while he considered his response. It irritated me here just as much as it had done at Broadmoor.”

— Alex Michaelides

242. “You want Alicia to feel, yes. But remember, with greater feeling comes greater danger.”

— Alex Michaelides

243. “A vase of pink lilies – Kathy’s favorite flowers – was on the table; their strong musky scent made the air thick and hard to breathe.”

— Alex Michaelides

244. “We were crashing through every last boundary between therapist and patient.”

— Alex Michaelides

245. “Why don’t you try writing things down? Keeping some kind of record? That might help.”

— Alex Michaelides

246. “Our character was formed without our even knowing it.”

— Alex Michaelides

247. “I had believed I was too damaged, too incapable of intimacy.”

— Alex Michaelides

248. “What a luxury that would be – to forgive. But I never got that chance.”

— Alex Michaelides

249. “Fred looked a little more hopeful. “So you did want to talk to me?”

— Alex Michaelides

250. “By that I mean psychiatrists tend to be wary of psychodynamic thinking. They favor a more biological, chemical, and, above all, practical approach – such as the cup of pills Alicia was handed at every meal.”

— Alex Michaelides