Top 400 Gail Honeyman Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Eyelids are really just flesh curtains.”

— Gail Honeyman

352. “I couldn’t imagine how it would be possible to hike to the source of the Nile, or to climb up a ladder to investigate a malfunction inside a particle accelerator, wearing kitten heels and ten denier tights.”

— Gail Honeyman

353. “Sleep came like a sledgehammer.”

— Gail Honeyman

354. “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

355. “He actually sounded like he meant both; that he would indeed see me soon, and that he wished me to take care of myself.”

— Gail Honeyman

356. “The Guinness, Raymond. It was three pounds fifty.” He stared at me. “It’s OK,” I said, “there’s no rush. You can give it to me on Monday, if that’s easier.”

— Gail Honeyman

357. “And the office is largely staffed by shirkers and idiots, Raymond”.”

— Gail Honeyman

358. “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

359. “Nevertheless, I couldn’t attend Sammy’s funeral in inappropriate clothing. The black dress, the assistant assured me, was smart, but could also be “dressed down.” The coat could be worn all winter. My jerkin had more than paid for itself over the years, but I would keep it, of course, in case it was required again in future. I hung everything up carefully. I was ready. Bring out your dead.”

— Gail Honeyman

360. “I did not own any Tupperware, having no need of it until this point. I could go to a department store to purchase some. That seemed to be the sort of thing that a woman of my age and social circumstances might do. Exciting!”

— Gail Honeyman

361. “People seem to like me better with makeup on, for some reason,” I said. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, apparently as stumped as I was.”

— Gail Honeyman

362. “He had the look of a gazelle or an impala, one of those boring beige animals with large, round eyes on the side of its face. The kind of animal that always gets eaten by a leopard in the end.”

— Gail Honeyman

363. “Then I felt bad. Even alcoholics deserve help, I suppose, although they should get drunk at home, like I do, so that they don’t cause anyone else any trouble. But then, not everyone is as sensible and considerate as me.”

— Gail Honeyman

364. “All of the people in the room seemed to take so much for granted: that they would be invited to social events, that they would have friends and family to talk to, that they would fall in love, be loved in return, perhaps create a family of their own. How would I celebrate my own fortieth birthday? I wondered. I hoped I would have people in my life to mark the occasion when the time came.”

— Gail Honeyman

365. “I work in accounts, Mrs. Gibbons,” I said. I told her a bit about my job, and she appeared to be fascinated, nodding along and occasionally saying “Is that right?” and “My my, isn’t that interesting.” When I ended my monologue, having exhausted the already limited conversational opportunities afforded by accounts receivable, she smiled.”

— Gail Honeyman

366. “The computer made that annoying ping which indicates the arrival of an electronic message. I clicked on it without thinking. How I despise these Pavlovian responses in myself!”

— Gail Honeyman

367. “Graphic design is of no interest to me. I’m a finance clerk. I could be issuing invoices for anything, really: armaments, Rohypnol, coconuts.”

— Gail Honeyman

368. “With my animal grooming regime in mind, I would turn my attention to my talons.”

— Gail Honeyman

369. “She certainly seemed to have a life, not just an existence. She seemed happy. It must be possible, then.”

— Gail Honeyman

370. “The goal, ultimately, was successful camouflage as a human woman.”

— Gail Honeyman

371. “Danny left, Eleanor,” she said, not looking up from her screen. “There’s a new guy now. Raymond Gibbons? He started last month?”

— Gail Honeyman

372. “I knew what was happening. It was the unscarred piece of my heart. It was just big enough to let in a bit of affection. There was still a tiny bit of room left. “Raymond,” I said, “you can’t know how much it means to me, to have a friend – a genuine, caring friend.”

— Gail Honeyman

373. “Part of me, a very small sliver, briefly considered dipping my head to taste a drop, purely because I’d been ordered not to.”

— Gail Honeyman

374. “After much reflection on the political and sociological aspects of the table, I have realized that I am completely uninterested in food.”

— Gail Honeyman

375. “Yes,” I said, and then, remembering my manners, I muttered, “Thank you, Raymond.”

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

377. “However much you loved someone, it wasn’t always enough. Love alone couldn’t keep them safe...”

— 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. “All of these seemed strange activities to impose on young people with no interest in them, and indeed I’m certain that they merely served to alienate the majority of us from physical activity for life.”

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

381. “The bag I finally settled on was impractical, being far too small to carry, for example, either a hardback book or a bottle of Glen’s.”

— Gail Honeyman

382. “Eleanor,” he said, “why don’t you give me a call in a bit, and maybe you could bring his stuff over to him?”

— Gail Honeyman

383. “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

384. “I had hair, ears, eyes and a mouth. I was a human woman, no more and no less.”

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

387. “Before and after the fire. One day I was breakfasting on watermelon, feta and pomegranate seeds, the next I was eating toasted Mother’s Pride smeared with margarine. That’s the story Mummy told me, at any rate.”

— Gail Honeyman

388. “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

389. “Are you talking about my face?” I said. “No, silly, your scar. Your face is lovely. You’ve got very clear skin, you know.”

— Gail Honeyman

390. “I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. There was throbbing pain and the beginnings of an itch downstairs. Perhaps I should have put my underpants back on.”

— Gail Honeyman

391. “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

392. “I did sometimes wonder what it would be like to have someone – a cousing, say, or a sibling – to call in times of need, or even just to spend unplanned time with. Some who knows you, cares about you, who wants the best for you. A houseplant, however attractive and robust, doesn’t quite cut the mustard, unfortunately. Pointless to speculate, though. I had no one, and it was futile to wish it was otherwise. After all, it was no more than I deserved. And, really, I was fine, fine, fine.”

— Gail Honeyman

393. “Sport is a mystery to me. In primary school, sports day was the one day of the year when the less academically gifted students could triumph, winning prizes for jumping fastest in a sack, or running from Point A to Point B more quickly than their classmates. How they loved to wear those badges on their blazers the next day! As if a silver in the egg-and-spoon race was some sort of compensation for not understanding how to use an apostrophe.”

— Gail Honeyman

394. “A human hand was exactly the right weight, exactly the right temperature for touching another person, I realized.”

— Gail Honeyman

395. “It’s only pastry and mechanically recovered meat.”

— Gail Honeyman

396. “But it didn’t hurt – like noticing you had a stone in your shoe, but while you were sitting down rather than walking on it.”

— Gail Honeyman

397. “The lights were bright on him, and I was in darkness. But he would see me, nonetheless. If it was meant to be, and surely it was, then he would see me, the way I’d seen him, all those weeks ago.”

— Gail Honeyman

398. “The thing is, even after everything that she’s done, after all of it, she’s still my mummy. She’s the only one I’ve got.”

— Gail Honeyman

399. “I say it out loud, often: niamniamensis. It’s like kissing, the “m’s forcing your lips together, rolling over the consonants, your tongue poking into n’s and over the s’s.”

— Gail Honeyman

400. “I bought some cat food for Glen on the way home. The thing about Glen is that, despite her offhand manner, she loves me. I know she’s only a cat. But it’s still love; animals, people. It’s unconditional, and it’s both the easiest and the hardest thing in the world.”

— Gail Honeyman