Top 250 Alex Michaelides Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. – SIGMUND FREUD, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.”

— Alex Michaelides

202. “Alicia’s body. But where Jean-Felix saw beauty, I saw only pain; I saw self-inflicted wounds, and scars of self-harm. ‘Did she ever talk to.”

— Alex Michaelides

203. “God hadn’t abandoned me during my childhood, when I had felt so alone and so scared – He had been keeping Kathy hidden up His sleeve, waiting to produce her, like a deft magician.”

— Alex Michaelides

204. “We need our mother to soothe our distress and make sense of our experience. As she does so, we slowly learn how to manage our physical and emotional states on our own.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

206. “Reading about life was no preparation for living it.”

— Alex Michaelides

207. “Through these stories, Mariana fell in love with a vision of England and Englishness – an England that had quite possibly never existed beyond the pages of these books: an England of warm summer rain, and wet greenery, and apple blossom; winding rivers and willow trees, and country pubs with roaring fires. The England of the Famous Five, and Peter Pan and Wendy; King Arthur and Camelot; Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen, Shakespeare – and Tennyson.”

— Alex Michaelides

208. “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

209. “Mariana’s mind went back to that poor girl, murdered by the marsh – whoever she was. Even if she wasn’t Zoe’s friend Tara, she was someone’s friend, someone’s daughter. That was the horror of it. We all secretly hope that tragedy will only ever happen to other people. But Mariana knew, sooner or later, it happens to you.”

— Alex Michaelides

210. “Alicia was silent again, and this time her silence would last forever.”

— Alex Michaelides

211. “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

212. “I tore off a sheet of paper from a pad, and reached for my pen. An old habit, formed at university – something about the process of putting pen to paper helps me organize my mind. I’ve always had difficulty formulating an opinion until I’ve written it down.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

214. “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

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

217. “I had no choice but to go on.”

— Alex Michaelides

218. “This whole mythology of us that I had built up, our hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes, our plans for the future; a life that had seemed so secure, so sturdy, now collapsed in a matter of seconds – like a house of cards in a gust of wind.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

226. “And it made me happy – even though I knew the ending.”

— Alex Michaelides

227. “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

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

231. “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

232. “It’s not about the coffee cup,” said Mariana. “It’s about boundaries, the boundaries of this group, the rules we abide by here. We’ve spoken about this before. We can’t take part in therapy if we feel unsafe. Boundaries make us feel safe. Boundaries are what therapy is about.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

234. “Imagine it-hearing your father, the very person you depend upon for your survival, wishing you dead.”

— Alex Michaelides

235. “I feel better already – writing this down is providing a kind of release, an outlet, a space to express myself. A bit like therapy, I suppose.”

— Alex Michaelides

236. “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

237. “He was all spirit now – all story.”

— Alex Michaelides

238. “I wasn’t condemned to repeat the past. I could change the future.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

240. “Except Mariana knew he wasn’t a phantom, or a monster. He was just a man, and he didn’t merit being mythologized; he didn’t deserve it.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

243. “I was back where I had started, as if there had been no break. My addiction had been patiently waiting for me all this time, like a faithful dog.”

— Alex Michaelides

244. “And we simply sat in silence.”

— Alex Michaelides

245. “Then Alicia did something I will never forget.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides

247. “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

248. “I wondered if Christian was borderline, not Alicia. That would make more sense.”

— Alex Michaelides

249. “The judge dismissed a lot of this as hearsay.”

— Alex Michaelides

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

— Alex Michaelides