The Girl on the Train
by Paula Hawkins
(Riverhead books, New York 2015)
I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head.
Page 12.
I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.
Page 45.
I’d never realized, not until the last year or two of my life, how shaming it is to be pitied.
Page 48.
I like trains, and what’s wrong with that? Trains are wonderful.
Page 56.
The sense of shame I feel about an incident is proportionate not just to the gravity of the situation, but also to the number of people who witnessed it.
Page 59.
Women are still only really valued for two things - their looks and their role as smothers. I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless.
Page 118.
The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps.
Pages 140-141.
You can’t step directly into a cold stream of water, it’s too shocking, too brutal, but if you get there gradually, you hardly notice it; it’s like boiling a frog in reverse.
Page 152.
I want to drag knives over my skin, just so that I can feel something other than shame.
Page 158.
I know what it is to love someone and to say the most terrible things to them, in anger or anguish.
Page 273.
It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers.
Page 306.
I can’t help how I feel.
Page 328.
If you can’t remember what you’ve done, your mind just fills in all the blanks and you think the worst possible things.
Page 338.
There is no job more important than that of raising a child, but the problem is that it isn’t valued.
Page 343.
Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are.
Page 344.
Bumping into people is all I seem to do in this neck of the woods.
Pages 375-376.
There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion.
Page 390.
Everything is a lie.
Page 399.
I can’t help the way I am.
Page 416.
Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away.
Page 430.
What did I expect? Anger, maybe, worry, upset. Not this. It’ not even rejection, it’s dismissal.
Page 446.