Eleanor Oliphant is completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“In principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“These days, loneliness is the new cancer–-a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I find lateness exceptionally rude; it’s so disrespectful, implying unambiguously that you consider yourself and your own time to be so much more valuable than the other person’s.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I wasn't good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I'd worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don't find very funny, or do things they don't particularly want to, with people whose company they don't particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I'd fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.”― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Whenever I'd been sad or upset before, the relevant people in my life would simply call my social worker and I'd be moved somewhere else. Raymond hadn't phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to intervene. He'd elected to look after me himself. I'd been pondering this, and concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult behavior wasn't a reason to end their relationship with you. If they liked you -- and, I remembered, Raymond and I had agreed that we were pals now -- then, it seemed, they were prepared to maintain contact, even if you were sad, or upset, or behaving in very challenging ways. This was something of a revelation.” ― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine