Top 80 Jenny Colgan Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Baby steps – one at a time. One day at a time, one breath at a time. That’s the only way anyone gets through anything, okay?”

— Jenny Colgan

2. “I think love is caramel. Sweet and fragant; always welcome. It is the gentle golden colour of a setting harvest sun; the warmth of a squeezed embrace; the easy melting of two souls into one and a taste that lingers even when everything else has melted away. Once tasted it is never forgotten.”

— Jenny Colgan

3. “When you change perspective, everything changes.”

— Jenny Colgan

4. “Be silent, hide away and let your thoughts and longings rise and set in the deep places of your heart. Let dreams move silently as stars, in wonder more than you can tell. Let them fulfill you – and be still.”

— Jenny Colgan

5. “When you look at things the same way you’ve always done, nothing changes. When you change perspective, everything changes.”

— Jenny Colgan

6. “There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them. Books were the best way Nina knew – apart from, sometimes, music – to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”

— Jenny Colgan

7. “Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can’t fix anything. And your life might turn out full of regrets.”

— Jenny Colgan

8. “I have a head for business and a body for sin. Unfortunately, the sin appears to be gluttony.”

— Jenny Colgan

9. “The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things.”

— Jenny Colgan

10. “Because every day with a book is slightly better than one without, and I wish you nothing but the happiest of days.”

— Jenny Colgan

11. “Because life is like that, isn’t it? If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again. And some people don’t. Some people go through life not really deciding to do much, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also a decision.”

— Jenny Colgan

12. “Because life is like that, isn’t it? If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again.”

— Jenny Colgan

13. “Some’ll rob you blind, some’ll kick you when you’re down, but you spread some good feeling and some warmth about, and people like that. Aye.”

— Jenny Colgan

14. “She had handed him her heart in her hands without truly knowing whether this quiet, enclosed man could be trusted with it. But it had gone; it had flown from her as if it had always been his, regardless of what he wanted to do with it.”

— Jenny Colgan

15. “Muffins are just an American way of saying, ‘I eat cake for breakfast.”

— Jenny Colgan

16. “Baking isLife. So when you describe what you’re making, you must describe life. Do you see? It’s not just recipes...”

— Jenny Colgan

17. “Christmas, as a practicing Catholic child, was seen as a reward for lots and lots and lots of church.”

— Jenny Colgan

18. “It’s also a story too about how if you love books, well, then I always think you have a layer of protection against the world, which sounds strange, but that is what I truly believe.”

— Jenny Colgan

19. “Well?” “He’s a very handsome man,” said Lorna. “You’ll have to keep him out of Inge-Britt’s clutches.” “She smells of bacon,” said Flora petulantly. “Oh yeah, men hate that,” said Lorna.”

— Jenny Colgan

20. “I am of the old-fashioned conviction that reading is a pleasure to be carefully guarded at all times.”

— Jenny Colgan

21. “They were probably reading on their tablets,” said Nina loyally. She loved her e-reader, too. “Yes, I know,” said the man. “But I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see what they were reading or ask them if it was good, or make a mental note to look for it later. It was as if suddenly, one day, all the books simply disappeared.”

— Jenny Colgan

22. “Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.”

— Jenny Colgan

23. “I could do with a bit of piece and quiet.”

— Jenny Colgan

24. “You know, on the bus, everyone used to read books. But then they were fiddling on their phones or those big phones, I don’t know what they’re called.”

— Jenny Colgan

25. “All the real blokes I know are obsessed with cars and have started doing cycling at the weekend and being really, really boring about it and banging on about their Fitbits and growing stupid beards and talking about being on Tinder. That’s what all the ‘real men’ are like these days!”

— Jenny Colgan

26. “Some people buried their fears in food, she knew, and some in booze, and some in planning elaborate engagements and weddings and other life events that took up every spare moment of their time in case unpleasant thoughts intruded. But for Nina, whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, she always turned to a book.”

— Jenny Colgan

27. “If there’s a corner where you plant your heart, it’s always with you.”

— Jenny Colgan

28. “Helping to match people to the book that would change their life, or make them fall in love, or get over a love affair gone wrong. And for the children, she could show them where to dive into a crocodile-infested river, or fly through the stars, or open the door of a wardrobe...”

— Jenny Colgan

29. “Books had been her solace when she was sad, her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she was down.”

— Jenny Colgan

30. “Email was great, but she did miss being excited by the post. That was probably why people did so much Internet shopping, she reckoned. So they had a parcel to look forward to.”

— Jenny Colgan

31. “It was horribly difficult, she reflected, to have finally found the place you thought of as home, only to realize you were going to have to move on again.”

— Jenny Colgan

32. “She had always been dainty, and never quite confident enough to dance where anyone might see. Here, though, nobody cared or noticed. The emphasis wasn’t on looking good or being sexy or standing out; it was about hurling yourself into it and dancing as if you didn’t have a care in the world, or a worry, or even a thought; it was dancing as catharsis, and Nina very quickly found that she absolutely loved it.”

— Jenny Colgan

33. “Now she knew that there were people -people everywhere- who cared about and loved books as much as she did.”

— Jenny Colgan

34. “We’d even devised the Buffy scale of life relationships: you start off wanting Xander, spend your twenties going out with Spike and setttle down with giles.”

— Jenny Colgan

35. “Anything that spreads books and brings about more books, I would say it is good. Good medicine, not bad.”

— Jenny Colgan

36. “Bramble, the fat retired sheepdog who was snoozing by the fire, got up in case she was doing anything interesting, then went back to his busy day job of sleeping, farting, and looking for pastry.”

— Jenny Colgan

37. “Plymouth?” Chapter Five They had to wait thirty-five minutes for the tide to go out far enough for them to get back across the causeway. Polly spent the entire time humming to distract herself from Kerensa, who had come up with another ninety-five reasons why she couldn’t possibly move to Polbearne. Funnily enough, they only seemed to make her more determined.”

— Jenny Colgan

38. “That was the problem with being so pale. Well, that and not being able to go out in bright sunlight without turning the color of a lobster and starting to smoke slightly.”

— Jenny Colgan

39. “Mark very much believed in exposing cracks to the air. He thought that was the only way anything started to heal.”

— Jenny Colgan

40. “If you weren’t an extrovert, if you weren’t shoving yourself out into the open all the time, posting selfies everywhere, demanding attention, talking constantly, people just gazed right past you. You got overlooked.”

— Jenny Colgan

41. “Her bark’s worse than her bite. Although her bite is pretty bad to begin with.”

— Jenny Colgan

42. “However, these days everyone holds their stupid smartphone in front of them the entire time in case somebody likes a dog picture on Facebook and they miss it by two seconds...”

— Jenny Colgan

43. “I know,” said Polly, and as gently as she was able said, “Have you thought about maybe another line of work?” “What, like making cakes?” Chris scoffed. “No, you see it’s kind of different for me. I’m a professional.” Polly decided it was best they leave before she hit him with the teapot.”

— Jenny Colgan

44. “How lovely to work at something you loved and knew you were great at, even if it was for a pittance and you occasionally got punched.”

— Jenny Colgan

45. “Endlessly welcoming and hospitable, particularly up here. It didn’t necessarily mean she belonged, did it?”

— Jenny Colgan

46. “The way my luck is at the moment,” said Polly, “I probably will get a tiny bit of money back, and as I leave the bank after picking it up, a bolt of lightning will come out of the sky and set it on fire. Then a piano will fall on my head and knock me down a manhole.”

— Jenny Colgan

47. “She was at that age now where if she made too much fuss over them everyone assumed she was desperately broody and felt sorry for her, whereas if she wasn’t interested enough she was considered bitter and jealous and also secretly desperate for a baby but not able to show it. It was a minefield.”

— Jenny Colgan

48. “She led him up through the now silent garden of the hotel, its fairy lights sparkling among the trees, the revellers inside, or gone home to bed. The early roses gave out their spring scent along with the perfume of bluebells in the deeper grass. And she led him to the sturdy tree trunk, both of them under a spell, a cloud of summer nights and dancing and laughter and music.”

— Jenny Colgan

49. “Some people go through life not really deciding to do much, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also a decision. You’ll get somewhere whether you put any effort into it or not. But doing something new is so hard. And a few things can help.”

— Jenny Colgan

50. “Books were the best way Nina knew – apart from, sometimes, music – to breach the barrier; to connect the internal universe with the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between the two worlds.”

— Jenny Colgan