Top 500 Liane Moriarty Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “He was all smug about how he’d negotiated flexible hours so he could continue being a hands-on dad, the dad his own father never got to be, and didn’t he just lap up all the praise he got for being such an involved father, and laugh sympathetically, but enjoyably, over the fact that Clementine never got any praise for being an involved mother?”

— Liane Moriarty

302. “He has mistakes in his past. I have mistakes in mine. The fact that we actually are each other’s mistakes is irrelevant!”

— Liane Moriarty

303. “What sort of daughter refuses to go to her mother’s house? What sort of daughter speaks with such violence to her mother about buying a new recipe book? She.”

— Liane Moriarty

304. “I see lots of differences between Australians and Americans – but as mothers, I think were pretty much alike!”

— Liane Moriarty

305. “The word ‘sorry’ is hardly adequate for my actions.”

— Liane Moriarty

306. “As soon as she left the attic, she was picked up and swept along by the fast-running current of her life.”

— Liane Moriarty

307. “Maybe it wasn’t that hard to be happy.”

— Liane Moriarty

308. “Everyone had another sort of life up their sleeve that might have made them happy.”

— Liane Moriarty

309. “Frances longed to Google it. How was she going to cope for ten days without instant answers to idle questions?”

— Liane Moriarty

310. “You’re different from other agency people,” one client told her at the end of their first meeting, as he shook her hand to seal the deal. “You actually listen more than you talk.”

— Liane Moriarty

311. “Your mind resists death with all its might.”

— Liane Moriarty

312. “Now we’re not talking. I haven’t seen him since. But I know when he comes back, we won’t talk. Or if we do, we’ll talk very, very politely and coldly – which is the same as not talking.”

— Liane Moriarty

313. “She’d paid full price, but life was a competition and she knew non-working wives of wealthy men loved to talk about how they’d saved by bargain-shopping for designer clothes. It was their contribution to the household finances.”

— Liane Moriarty

314. “The girl said, ‘Sometimes you locked me in my room with only water. I had to ration the water. That was a terrible thing to do to a little girl. I thought I would be there forever. I thought I would die. I think I might have come close to dying. A few times.”

— Liane Moriarty

315. “Each obligation on its own seemed laughably easy. It was the sheer volume that threatened to bury her.”

— Liane Moriarty

316. “I can’t be in the same room as you right now.” She hopped out of bed, taking the iPad with her. “Be ridiculous, then,” said Ed.”

— Liane Moriarty

317. “It was interesting that fury and fear could look so much the same.”

— Liane Moriarty

318. “Miss Barnes clearly didn’t know what in the world to do. She was twenty-four years old, for heaven’s sake.”

— Liane Moriarty

319. “But even while he is frustrated with her, or hurt by her, or plain irritated by her, he still loves her, he still has a secret crush on her, he is still awed that someone this beautiful is with him.”

— Liane Moriarty

320. “He couldn’t understand Rachel’s need to wonder what could have been, rather than just accepting that it never would be.”

— Liane Moriarty

321. “Friends could last a lifetime. The statistics were better than for relationships.”

— Liane Moriarty

322. “This can happen to anyone.”

— Liane Moriarty

323. “Watching someone have a panic attack was like looking in the eyes of someone trapped behind glass, drowning right in front of you.”

— Liane Moriarty

324. “All babies had that same wise look, as if they’d just come from another realm where they’d learned some beautiful truth they couldn’t share. Every day brought an endless stream of new life.”

— Liane Moriarty

325. “Her brain couldn’t seem to catch up with the news.”

— Liane Moriarty

326. “The body could find balance between opposing forces. The mind could do the same.”

— Liane Moriarty

327. “Brooke was meant to avoid stress because of her migraines, not chase it, but she’d always been a martyr. Amy remembered Brooke as a little girl, high pigtails and reflective sunglasses.”

— Liane Moriarty

328. “But love after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best – that sort of a love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.”

— Liane Moriarty

329. “Each time she fell out of love with him, he saw it happen and waited it out.”

— Liane Moriarty

330. “She always forgot how pain was so upsetting. Cruel. It hurt your feelings. You just wanted it to stop, please, right now.”

— Liane Moriarty

331. “There was nothing worse than having to feel sorry for people who had wronged you. You don’t want lottery wins for your enemies, but you don’t want tragedies for them either. Then they got the upper hand. Damn those Delaneys.”

— Liane Moriarty

332. “She always forgot how pain was so upsetting. Cruel. It hurt your feelings. You just wanted it to stop, please, right now. Epidurals were the way to go. One epidural for my headache, please. Thank you.”

— Liane Moriarty

333. “Ever since she’d been living alone, she’d gone to bed with the television on; the comforting banality of the murmuring voices and flickering images warded off the feeling of terror that could sometimes overwhelm her.”

— Liane Moriarty

334. “When she thought of that long night, it was like remembering an extraordinarily tough match where she’d prevailed. Except there was no trophy or applause. The only recognition you got for surviving a night like that came from other mothers. Only they understood the epic nature of your trivial achievements.”

— Liane Moriarty

335. “None of this seems real,” said Alice. “I’m like Alice in Wonderland. Remember how much I hated that book? Because nothing made sense. You didn’t like it either. We liked things to make sense.”

— Liane Moriarty

336. “Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going’ Tennessee Williams.”

— Liane Moriarty

337. “She would never again lie in bed on a Good Friday morning and relax in the blissful knowledge that there was nothing to do and nowhere to be, because for the rest of her life, there would always, always be something left undone. An unmade confession. An ugly secret.”

— Liane Moriarty

338. “The world had begun to move faster and faster over the last decade. People spoke faster, drove faster, walked faster. Everyone was in a rush. Everyone was busy. Everyone demanded their gratification instantly.”

— Liane Moriarty

339. “Sometimes there are no signs. That’s what he told the newly grieving parents at the Tuesday night group. He told them there was research to suggest that teenage suicide was often the consequence of an impulsive decision.”

— Liane Moriarty

340. “And Jeremy, her earnest face crumpled. She looked so embarrassed, I felt like I’d kicked a kitten. She was falling all over herself to apologize.”

— Liane Moriarty

341. “For the first time in her sixty-nine years she felt the fear: the fear every woman knows is always waiting for her, the possibility that lurks and scuttles in the shadows of her mind, even if she’s spent her entire life being so tenderly loved and protected by good men.”

— Liane Moriarty

342. “She moved through therapists like she moved through boyfriends. She dumped both boyfriends and therapists when they offended her, enraged her, bored her. The boyfriends said she was a head case, a nut case, a drama queen, a psycho. The therapists said she had ADHD or OCD, depression or anxiety or most likely both, a nervous disorder, a mood disorder, a.”

— Liane Moriarty

343. “I wish my memories would blur a bit,’ Savannah had said, looking into her glass. ‘I remember everything. The details never fade.”

— Liane Moriarty

344. “Oh my Lord... she’d seduced her brother-in-law with butter.”

— Liane Moriarty

345. “They were only on the very outer edge of old age, they were not yet dealing with dementia or confusion, just bad knees and indigestion, some insomnia, apparently.”

— Liane Moriarty

346. “Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.” Good one, Leonardo. But the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe I wouldn’t say anything motivational at all. It’s quite possible that I might briskly slap my hands against my knees and say, “Sounds like it’s time you gave up.”

— Liane Moriarty

347. “But things change. People change. It just happens. It’s just life. The fact that you’re getting a divorce doesn’t change the fact that you had all those wonderful times. And I swear.”

— Liane Moriarty

348. “Friendship and holidays. A swimming pool. Champagne and sunshine and laughter. It seemed like a dream life.”

— Liane Moriarty

349. “She made the right choice for the girl she was then.”

— Liane Moriarty

350. “It was like every fight she’d ever had with her sisters. A wave of rage would sweep her up and carry her high and righteous until she did something embarrassingly excessive. Then it would dump her, splat, leaving her stupid and small.”

— Liane Moriarty