Top 400 Gail Honeyman Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 8 of 9

351. “I was on the horns of a dilemma; there seemed little point in traveling to hospital to see a comatose stranger and drop off some fizzy pop at his bedside. On the other hand, it would be interesting to experience being a hospital visitor, and there was always an outside chance that he might wake up when I was there. He had rather seemed to enjoy my monologue while we were waiting for the ambulance; well, insofar as I could tell, given that he was unconscious.”

— Gail Honeyman

352. “A cultured man. How much we had in common!”

— Gail Honeyman

353. “My preference is for fodder that is cheap, quick and simple to procure and prepare, whilst providing the requisite nutrients to enable a person to stay alive.”

— Gail Honeyman

354. “That evening, I had planned to relax with a cup of Bovril and listen to a very interesting radio program about South American politics, after completing my usual checks on what Johnnie Lomond was up to. He’d sent a desultory tweet about a character in a television program and posted a photograph on Facebook of a new pair of boots he wanted. A slow news day, then. Hearing from Mummy on a Monday was an unexpected, unwelcome surprise.”

— Gail Honeyman

355. “Was this how it worked, then, successful social integration? Was it really that simple? Wear some lipstick, go to the hairdressers and alternate the clothes you wear? Someone ought to write a book, or at least an explanatory pamphlet, and pass this information on.”

— Gail Honeyman

356. “The gilded confines of the Beauty Hall were not my preferred habitat; like the chicken that had laid the eggs for my sandwich, I was more of a free-range creature.”

— Gail Honeyman

357. “I wasn’t made for illiteracy; it simply didn’t come naturally.”

— Gail Honeyman

358. “Monday takes a long time to come around.”

— Gail Honeyman

359. “This time, I couldn’t resist. I took out my brand-new phone, accessed my pristine Twitter account and waited till he had paid and had left the building. I typed quickly and pressed send.”

— Gail Honeyman

360. “Turn the other cheek for Mummy, Eleanor, there’s a good girl.”

— Gail Honeyman

361. “I suppose one of the reasons we’re all able to continue to exist for our allotted span in this green and blue vale of tears is that there is always, however remote it might seem, the possibility of change.”

— Gail Honeyman

362. “I opened my mouth and heard the flesh and gums peel apart, like orange segments being separated.”

— Gail Honeyman

363. “We laughed far longer than his feeble witticism merited, just because it felt good.”

— Gail Honeyman

364. “Mummy always said that an obsession with home interiors was tediously bourgeois and, worse still, that any kind of “do-it-yourself” activities were very much the preserve of the hoi polloi. It’s quite frightening to think about the ideas that I may have absorbed from Mummy.”

— Gail Honeyman

365. “I walked through the fire and I lived.”

— Gail Honeyman

366. “We ended up in a bar five minutes from the hospital, on a busy road. One of the tables outside was unoccupied. The metal surface was covered in circular stains and its legs looked unstable, but Raymond seemed delighted. “Seats outside!” he said, happily throwing himself down and hanging his jacket over the back of his chair. “Right then, I’ll go to the bar,” he said. “What are you after, Eleanor?”

— Gail Honeyman

367. “But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way.”

— Gail Honeyman

368. “My eye was drawn to a bright green hue, the same shade as a poisonous Amazonian frog, the tiny, delightfully deadly ones.”

— Gail Honeyman

369. “It occurs to me that there are many things in life that I’ve never considered doing, Raymond. I suppose I hadn’t realized that I had any control over them. That sounds ridiculous, I know,” I said.”

— Gail Honeyman

370. “I’m not lonely, Mummy,” I said, protesting. “I’m fine on my own. I’ve always been fine on my own.”

— Gail Honeyman

371. “You’re a bit mental, aren’t you?” she said, not in the least aggressively, but slurring her words somewhat. It was hardly the first time I’d heard this. “Yes,” I said, “yes, I suppose I am.”

— Gail Honeyman

372. “She’s not my type, to be honest.’ He took a noisy mouthful of beer. ‘I mean, looks are important, of course they are, but you’ve got to be able to have a laugh, enjoy each other’s company too, you know? I’m not sure me and Laura have got that much in common.”

— Gail Honeyman

373. “The cat squirmed in my arms and landed on the carpet with a heavy thump. She strolled over to the litter tray, squatted down and urinated loudly, maintaining extremely assertive eye contact with me throughout. After the deluge, she lazily kicked over the traces with her back legs, scattering litter all over my freshly cleaned floor. A woman who knew her own mind and scorned the conventions of polite society. We were going to get along just fine.”

— Gail Honeyman

374. “Eventually I decided to start from the outside and work my way in. That’s what happens in nature after all: shedding skin, rebirth. Animals birds and insects can provide such useful insights. If I’m ever unsure of the correct course of action, I’ll think what would a ferret do? Or how would a salamander respond to this situation? Invariably I find the right answer.”

— Gail Honeyman

375. “There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar.”

— Gail Honeyman

376. “I noticed him glance at me, and then he slowed his steps to match mine. I realized that such small gestures – the way his mother had made me a cup of tea after our meal without asking, remembering that I didn’t take sugar, the way Laura had placed two little biscuits on the saucer when she brought me coffee in the salon – such things could mean so much.”

— Gail Honeyman

377. “I was a human woman, no more and no less.”

— Gail Honeyman

378. “The barman was well over six feet tall and had created strange, enormous holes in his earlobes by inserting little black plastic circles in order to push back the skin. For some reason, I was reminded of my shower curtain.”

— Gail Honeyman

379. “Social interaction, it appeared, was surprisingly expensive.”

— Gail Honeyman

380. “I’m so sorry.” We both spoke the words at exactly the same time. We tried again, and the same thing happened. Suddenly, I laughed, and he did too. Short bursts, at first, and then for longer. It was proper, genuine laughter, the kind that makes your whole body shake. My mouth was wide open, my breath slightly wheezy, my eyes shut tight. I felt vulnerable, and yet very relaxed and comfortable. I imagined that vomiting or going to the lavatory in front of him would feel the same way.”

— Gail Honeyman

381. “I’m not really sure I know any normal people.”

— Gail Honeyman

382. “There was no living thing in the universe that was more alone than me. Or more terrible.”

— Gail Honeyman

383. “If I could perform scansion on the Aeneid, if I could build a macro in an Excel spreadsheet, if I could spend the last nine birthdays and Christmases and New Year’s Eves alone, then I’m sure I could manage to organize a delightful festive lunch for thirty people on a budget of ten pounds per capita.”

— Gail Honeyman

384. “I wondered, however, whether I might be better off waiting to see what happened at the gig before taking things to an epistolary level. There was no need to be reckless.”

— Gail Honeyman

385. “I’d only been offered a choice of tea or coffee. I wondered why hair salons didn’t provide anything stronger.”

— Gail Honeyman

386. “I looked around, wondering what time it was, and whether they would have burned Sammy by now, or whether they kept all the bodies back till the end of the day to get a really good blaze going.”

— Gail Honeyman

387. “Good-bye, Mummy,” I said. The last word. My voice was firm, measured, certain. I wasn’t sad. I was sure. And, underneath it all, like an embryo forming – tiny, so tiny, barely a cluster of cells, the heartbeat as small as the head of a pin, there I was. Eleanor Oliphant.”

— Gail Honeyman

388. “I decided to take my time getting ready, and looked cautiously at myself in the mirror while the shower warmed up. Could I ever become a musician’s muse? I wondered. What was a muse, anyway? I was familiar with the classical allusion, of course, but, in modern-day, practical terms, a muse seemed simply to be an attractive woman whom the artist wanted to sleep with.”

— Gail Honeyman

389. “I’d been pondering this, and concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult behavior wasn’t a reason to end their relationship with you.”

— Gail Honeyman

390. “The jeans looked too small but, miraculously, they stretched around me and I was able to fasten them. The top was loose, with a high neck. I felt appropriately covered up, if nothing else, although I couldn’t see the cutout section at the back. I looked exactly like everyone else. I supposed that was the point.”

— Gail Honeyman

391. “Danny left, Eleanor,’ she said, not looking up from her screen. ‘There’s a new guy now. Raymond Gibbons? He started last month?’ She said this as though I should have known. Still not looking up, she wrote his full name and telephone extension on a Post-it note and handed it to me.”

— Gail Honeyman

392. “A woman who knew her own mind and scorned the conventions of polite society. We were going to get along just fine.”

— Gail Honeyman

393. “She certainly seems to have a life, not just an existence.”

— Gail Honeyman

394. “Eyelids are really just flesh curtains.”

— Gail Honeyman

395. “I cleared my throat before I spoke, realizing that I hadn’t uttered a word for almost twelve hours, back when I told the taxi driver where to drop me off. That’s actually quite good, for me – usually, I don’t speak from the point at which I state my destination to the bus driver on Friday night, right through until I greet his colleague on Monday morning.”

— Gail Honeyman

396. “What about your mum, Eleanor? What happened to her?” I gulped the rest of my wine down as fast as I could. “I’d prefer not to discuss Mummy, if that’s all right, Raymond.”

— Gail Honeyman

397. “She had tried to steer me towards vertiginous heels again – why are these people so incredibly keen on crippling their female customers? I began to wonder if cobblers and chiropractors had established some fiendish cartel.”

— Gail Honeyman

398. “There was no hope, things couldn’t be put right. I couldn’t be put right. The past could neither be escaped nor undone. After all these weeks of delusion, I recognized, breathless, the pure, brutal truth of it. I felt despair and nausea mingled inside me, and then that familiar black, black mood came down first.”

— Gail Honeyman

399. “I decided to clean the flat from top to bottom. I saw how grubby it was, how tired, It looked like I felt – unloved, uncared for.”

— Gail Honeyman

400. “Perhaps that was what pampering meant, though – literally, not having to lift a finger.”

— Gail Honeyman