Top 400 Gail Honeyman Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “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

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

— Gail Honeyman

403. “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

404. “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

405. “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

406. “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

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

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

410. “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

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

— Gail Honeyman

412. “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

413. “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

414. “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

415. “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

416. “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

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

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

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

— Gail Honeyman

420. “We walked in silence, the kind that you didn’t feel the need to fill.”

— Gail Honeyman

421. “Laura’s house was at the end of a neat cul-de-sac of small, modern houses. There were several cars in the driveway. We approached the front door and I noticed that she had red geraniums in window boxes. I find geraniums somewhat unsettling; that rich, sticky scent when you brush against them, a brackish, vegetable smell that’s the opposite of floral.”

— Gail Honeyman

422. “Eleanor Oliphant? June Mullen, Social Work,” she said, stepping forward, her progress blocked by the door. “I was expecting Heather,” I said, peering around.”

— Gail Honeyman

423. “For my twenty-first birthday gift, he therefore punched me in the kidneys, kicked me as I lay on the floor until I passed out and then gave me a black eye when I came round, for “withholding information.”

— Gail Honeyman

424. “The slow noise of the scissors slicing through it was like the sound of embers shifting in a fire: tinkly, dangerous.”

— Gail Honeyman

425. “Could I ever become a Musician’s muse, I wondered? What was a muse, anyway?”

— Gail Honeyman

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

427. “They were heels which were easy to walk in, but which were, nonetheless “very feminine.” On what basis was this decided, and by whom? Did it matter? I made a mental note to research gender politics and gender identity at some point. There would be a book about it – there were books about everything.”

— Gail Honeyman

428. “Lesson: I must be prepared at all times.”

— Gail Honeyman

429. “I could almost believe that someone might enjoy, or at least tolerate, my company over the duration of a brief luncheon, but it stretched credibility to think that it could happen twice in one week.”

— Gail Honeyman

430. “I could open up the novel at any page and immediately know where I was in the story, could almost visualize the next sentence before I reached it.”

— Gail Honeyman

431. “How different Raymond’s life had been from mine – a proper family, a mother and a father and a sister, nestled among other proper families. How different it was still; every Sunday, here, this.”

— Gail Honeyman

432. “He had his hands in the pockets of his low-slung denim trousers, and was wearing a strange, oversized woolen hat that I hadn’t seen before. It looked like the kind of hat that a German goblin might wear in an illustration from a nineteenth-century fairy tale, possibly one about a baker who was unkind to children and got his comeuppance via an elfin horde. I rather liked it.”

— Gail Honeyman

433. “I’d learned that money was something to worry about, to ration.”

— Gail Honeyman

434. “The minister, looking pleased with himself, said that they’d stitched a happy life together after.”

— Gail Honeyman

435. “That’s all you ever want for your kids: for them to be happy.”

— Gail Honeyman

436. “I’ve noticed that most Scottish people don’t inquire beyond “down south,” and I can only assume that this description encapsulates some sort of generic Englandshire for them, boat races and bowler hats, as though Liverpool and Cornwall were the same sorts of places, inhabited by the same sorts of people. Conversely, they are always adamant that every part of their own country is unique and special. I’m not sure why.”

— Gail Honeyman

437. “I was homeschooled after that.”

— Gail Honeyman

438. “Was I alive? I hoped so, but only because if this was the location of the afterlife, I’d be lodging an appeal immediately.”

— Gail Honeyman

439. “You never think about the people that are left behind to deal with the aftermath of it all.”

— Gail Honeyman