Top 40 Jane Harper Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “We see what we want to see.”

— Jane Harper

2. “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral. It was Falk who looked away first.”

— Jane Harper

3. “To look out and see not another soul between you and the horizon could be a strange and disturbing sight.”

— Jane Harper

4. “She was smiling in every photo, looked truly happy in none.”

— Jane Harper

5. “It’s the panic that gets you. Makes it hard to trust what you’re seeing.”

— Jane Harper

6. “Born and bred here, or forever an outsider, seems to be the Kiewarra way.”

— Jane Harper

7. “The rumors were fed well... and grew fat and solid. They sprouted legs and heads, and they never died.”

— Jane Harper

8. “Nothing like old-fashioned misogyny to make the ignorant turn down good advice.”

— Jane Harper

9. “Sometimes things turn out for the best. And when you end up in the right place, it’s not always helpful to go digging up the road that got you there.”

— Jane Harper

10. “Someone can decide it’s in their best interests to agree to something, but a choice is only really a choice if there’s a genuine alternative. Otherwise it’s manipulation and it’s taking advantage.”

— Jane Harper

11. “His own naivety taunted him like a flicker of madness.”

— Jane Harper

12. “Life out here is hard. We all try to get through the best way we can. But trust me, there’s not a single person here who isn’t lying to themselves about something.”

— Jane Harper

13. “It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse. The.”

— Jane Harper

14. “They’ll make a gymnastics team, bending over backwards to prove their investigation was sound.”

— Jane Harper

15. “Fire would barrel along that chain like a bullet train, he knew. It surged and jumped and gorged itself. It raced like an animal. It ravaged with inhuman efficiency.”

— Jane Harper

16. “It was too late for that now. Some things had to be lived with.”

— Jane Harper

17. “We need to be looking out for each other, not at each other.”

— Jane Harper

18. “And yes, he battled the daily commute to work and spent a lot of his days under fluorescent office lights, but at least his livelihood didn’t hang by a thread on the whim of a weather pattern. At least he wasn’t driven to such fear and despair by the blank skies that there was even a chance the wrong end of a gun might look like the right answer.”

— Jane Harper

19. “Death rarely changes how we feel about someone. Heightens it, more often than not.”

— Jane Harper

20. “Hidden somewhere in the dark, the cicadas screeched.”

— Jane Harper

21. “No-one tells you this is how it’s going to be, do they? Oh yes, they’re all so sorry for your loss, all so keen to pop round and get the gossip when it happens, but no-one mentions having to go through your dead son’s drawers and return their library books, do they? No-one tells you how to cope with that.”

— Jane Harper

22. “Dirty mugs crowded a side table, the recycling bin was overflowing, and stacks of letters stood unopened. It all told a tale of grief and distraction.”

— Jane Harper

23. “The rabbit quivered a little under their scrutiny but mainly lay still. Fear masquerading as acceptance.”

— Jane Harper

24. “They lived in a land of extremes in more ways than one. People were either completely fine, or very not.”

— Jane Harper

25. “But when she re-emerged in his life at fifteen, it was like she’d been reborn, fully formed and trailing fascination and mystery behind her like perfume.”

— Jane Harper

26. “How short was the road from that decision to this moment? The question ached like a bruise.”

— Jane Harper

27. “Outside, washing hung still on the rotary line, bone dry and stiff from the sun. A child’s scooter lay abandoned on the stepping-stone path. Just one human heart beat within a kilometer radius of the farm. So nothing reacted when, deep inside the house, the baby started crying.”

— Jane Harper

28. “Above the three coffins, a family of four stared down from a blown-up photograph. Their static smiles were overlarge and pixelated. Falk recognised the picture from the news. It had been used a lot. Beneath, the names of the dead were spelled out in native flowers. Luke. Karen. Billy.”

— Jane Harper

29. “Somewhere in the inky garden the nocturnal insects rattled like white noise.”

— Jane Harper

30. “The sooner you say it, Mandy, the sooner I can tell you to mind your own business, and we can all get back to our Sundays.”

— Jane Harper

31. “He avoided small talk at the best of times and this, unquestionably, was a million horrific miles from the best of times.”

— Jane Harper

32. “He stood on shaky legs, his vision blurred, as all around the cockatoos whirled and screamed into the scorching red sky. Alone, in that monstrous wound, Falk put his face in his hands and, just once, screamed himself.”

— Jane Harper

33. “It seemed very far away and long ago now. Like it had happened to someone else.”

— Jane Harper

34. “But tiny variances in their friendship hinted at new paths to be explored. Conversations had a fresh edge... The group dynamics had taken a subtle but definite shift, with none of them quite yet sure where they had landed.”

— Jane Harper

35. “They don’t realise what they do at that age can still haunt them years later.”

— Jane Harper

36. “Show her a mother of school-age children who didn’t sigh on a daily basis, and she’d show you a woman with a nanny.”

— Jane Harper

37. “Luke pulled up photos on his phone. Lots of them. Falk scrolled through with the polite forbearance of the childless.”

— Jane Harper

38. “Eventually they made their obligatory excuses about trains to catch and early starts. As they shook hands for what would prove to be the last time, Falk found himself struggling to remember, once again, why they were still friends.”

— Jane Harper

39. “His edges had been gently rounded by nuanced debate and foreign coffee and morning news.”

— Jane Harper

40. “He passed a takeaway that seemed to offer cuisine from any corner of the world as long as it was fried or could be displayed in a pie warmer.”

— Jane Harper

41. “On arrival, as the empty moving truck disappeared from sight, they gazed around and were always taken aback by the crushing vastness of the open land. The space was the thing that hit them first. There was so much of it. There was enough to drown in. To look out and see not another soul between you and the horizon could be a strange and disturbing sight.”

— Jane Harper

42. “Are they supposed to be happy or sad? I mean, is it a celebration of the people who made it, or a memorial to the ones who didn’t?”

— Jane Harper

43. “Bloody tragic.’ The farmer at Falk’s side spoke out of nowhere. His arms were crossed, fists wedged tightly under his armpits. ‘It is,’ Falk said. ‘You knew ’em well?’ ‘Not really. Only Luke, the –’ For a dizzy moment Falk couldn’t think of a word to describe the man in the largest coffin.”

— Jane Harper

44. “Falk had chosen his life in Melbourne. And he was happy with it, he thought. He liked being able to walk down the street, surrounded by people but without a single soul recognizing him. He enjoyed work that taxed his brain rather than his back.”

— Jane Harper

45. “Practical romance is my absolute favorite kind.”

— Jane Harper

46. “Her husband leaned against the lounge room doorway, arms folded, his gaze steady.”

— Jane Harper

47. “But that’s part of living, isn’t it?” She looked over and met Falk’s gaze. “What we want changes.”

— Jane Harper