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

401. “I stared at her. The imbalance in the extent of our knowledge of each other was manifestly unfair. Social workers should present their new clients with a fact sheet about themselves to try to redress this, I think. After all, she’d had unrestricted access to that big brown folder, the bumper book of Eleanor, two decades’ worth of information about the intimate minutiae of my life. All I knew about her was her name and her employer.”

— Gail Honeyman

402. “It’s as unfair to dislike someone because they’re attractive as it is to dislike someone because of a deformity.”

— Gail Honeyman

403. “He sings in the way that a bird sings; his music is a sweet, natural thing that comes like rain, like sunlight, something that, perfectly, just is.”

— Gail Honeyman

404. “The strange thing – something I’d never expected – was that it actually made you feel better when someone put their arm around you, held you close. Why? Was it some mammalian thing, this need for human contact? He was warm and solid. I could smell his deodorant, and the detergent he used to wash his clothes – over both scents there lay a faint patina of cigarettes. A Raymond smell. I leaned in closer.”

— Gail Honeyman

405. “I should have been offended that he was commandeering my living space, but instead I felt relief, overwhelming relief at being taken care of.”

— Gail Honeyman

406. “I wondered if thats what it would be like in a family – it was simply that you would know, almost unthinkingly, that they’d be there if you needed them, no matter how bad things got. Im not prone to envy, as a rule, but I must confess I felt a twinge when I thought about this. Envy was a minor emotion in comparison to the sorrow I felt at never having a chance to experience this... what was it? Unconditional love, I supposed.”

— Gail Honeyman

407. “Whatever Raymond was eating smelled disgusting, like gently reheated vomit.”

— Gail Honeyman

408. “He was warm and solid. I could smell his deodorant, and the detergent he used to wash his clothes – over both scents there lay a faint patina of cigarettes. A Raymond smell. I leaned in closer.”

— Gail Honeyman

409. “Have you ever had counseling before, Miss Oliphant?” she said, taking out a notebook from her handbag. It had, I noticed, several accessories attached to it, key rings and the like – a pink, fluffy monkey, a giant metallic letter M, and, most hideous of all, a tiny, sequinned red stiletto shoe. I’d come across the type before. Ms. Temple was “fun.”

— Gail Honeyman

410. “I went to see Loretta, the office manager. She has overinflated ideas of her own administrative abilities, and in her spare time makes hideous jewelry, which she then sells to idiots.”

— Gail Honeyman

411. “Daringly, I didn’t put my name, because I realized he’d know it was from me.”

— Gail Honeyman

412. “There he was, a gift from the gods – handsome, elegant and talented. I was fine, perfectly fine on my own, but I needed to keep Mummy happy, keep her calm so she would leave me in peace.”

— Gail Honeyman

413. “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. I wondered how it would feel to perform such simple deeds for other people.”

— Gail Honeyman

414. “Their laughter seemed to have turned into low whispering now. It never ceases to amaze me, the things they find interesting, amusing or unusual. I can only assume they’ve led very sheltered lives.”

— Gail Honeyman

415. “Everybody needs to take a wee moment to themselves now and again, eh?”

— Gail Honeyman

416. “After some contemplation, I had opted for a square of indeterminate white fish, which was coated in bread crumbs and deep fried and then inserted between an overly sweet bread bun, accompanied, bizarrely, by a processed cheese slice, a limp lettuce leaf and some salty, tangy white slime which bordered on obscenity.”

— Gail Honeyman

417. “What, after all, is the point of eating out if you have to clear up yourself? You might as well have stayed at home.”

— Gail Honeyman

418. “There isn’t anything to eat. Mummy will be back soon. Where’s Mummy?”

— Gail Honeyman

419. “I let myself be held, moved closer into the embrace in fact, because, I was forced to admit, at that particular time and in those particular circumstances, and feeling the way I did, the sensation of being held by him was nothing short of miraculous.”

— Gail Honeyman

420. “There is categorically no need for eye contact when the person concerned is wielding sharp implements.”

— Gail Honeyman

421. “He seemed very out of breath, placed both items gently on my hall carpet without being asked, and started to take off his jacket, still puffing and blowing like a beached porpoise. Smoking kills.”

— Gail Honeyman

422. “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.”

— Gail Honeyman

423. “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

424. “Poor old soul,” he said. I nodded. Surprisingly, I felt an emotion that I recognized as anxiety or concern in relation to this elderly stranger.”

— Gail Honeyman

425. “What color would you like?” she said. My eye was drawn to a bright green hue, the same shade as a poisonous Amazonian frog, the tiny, delightfully deadly ones. I handed it to her. She nodded. She wasn’t actually chewing gum, but her demeanor was very much that of a gum chewer.”

— Gail Honeyman

426. “I could tell he was being genuine because of all the warmth that was coming down the phone. Your voice changes when you’re smiling, it alters the sound somehow.”

— Gail Honeyman

427. “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

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

— Gail Honeyman

429. “Such small coincidences can pepper a life with interest.”

— Gail Honeyman

430. “Twenty-first-century communication. I fear for our nation’s standards of literacy.”

— Gail Honeyman

431. “How brave are you prepared to be, Eleanor?” Laura asked. This was the correct question. I am brave. I am brave, courageous, Eleanor Oliphant.”

— Gail Honeyman

432. “If I’m ever unsure as to the correct course of action, I’ll think, “What would a ferret do?”

— Gail Honeyman

433. “I had no idea what it was, but I realized that I’d happily sit here in the warmth with him and watch a golf programme if that was all there was.”

— Gail Honeyman

434. “I needed to make something happen, anything. I couldn’t keep passing through life, over it, under it, around it. I couldn’t go on haunting the world like a wraith.”

— Gail Honeyman

435. “Which way are you going, Eleanor?” he asked. I considered the best response to this question. I was heading home for an exciting rendezvous. This highly unusual occasion – an appointment with a visitor to my home – meant that I needed to curtail this tedious, unplanned interaction posthaste.”

— Gail Honeyman

436. “Who can understand the workings of fate, after all? Far greater minds than mine had tried and failed, to arrive at a conclusion.”

— Gail Honeyman