Jojo Moyes Quotations

What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air - you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming - a physical pain.

Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country.

My go-to winter recipe is beef and butternut squash stew, cooked in the slow oven all day.

I have always written. I was one of those kids who would always fill exercise books with girls and telepathic ponies.

I find my best writing time is actually 6 A.M., before the detritus of the day - the fish fingers and the school uniform and dogs and bills - have had a chance to clog up my brain. I can usually get 500 words done before 7 A.M. But it is difficult, and the Internet, and social networking, are terrible timesucks.

If chick-lit really is taking a commercial battering, I'd suggest it's because the marketing has been done to death. Covering everything in girlie pink and putting chocolate in the title may once have been a clever Pavlovian device but now makes readers feel a bit sick.

If the characters are compelling, readers will follow anywhere.

I always say that in any roomful of people, I could hive a novel out of any one person's family or life story.

I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything - so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter.

I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better.

I think there is an awful lot of technology for technology's sake. I have yet to be convinced by my husband that persuading our mobiles to talk to our computers is going to be quicker and more straightforward than scribbling a note in our kitchen diary.

Rejection is part of the process, so you can't let it crush you. My first three novels never made it into publication, but my fourth, 'Sheltering Rain,' was translated into 11 languages.

My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem.

My Writers Guild of America card is one of my proudest possessions. I was given it after being invited to write the script for a film of my last novel, 'Me Before You,' which is being made by MGM. Whenever I look at it, I think, 'I'm a Hollywood writer!'

Marriage is a decades-long experiment, conducted mostly in private; a test of will in the face of unexpected obstacles.

I write in all sorts of places; it's a legacy of my time as a journalist, where I could turn out copy in a hotel corridor. But I have a little office that I rent in my local town, and that's my ideal place.

My characters make incomprehensible decisions until you stand in their shoes. Then it makes more sense. Life is very rarely black and white, and most people are trying to do their best. I try not to judge.

Unless you sell millions, I think it's very hard as a writer not to feel anxious about what you put out. I always feel I could do better.

We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds.

Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to - cinematically, several times with different elements - to see what works. I can't write a scene until I can see it.

You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.

We want a macho high-earner - with the sensitivity of Gok Wan. We want a man with Brad Pitt's six-pack - but one who's prepared to overlook our own muffin top. No wonder most men don't know if they're coming or going.

Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story.

I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel - that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I'd hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end.

I've always been a focused person who knows how to get what I want.

Novelists seem to fall into two distinct categories - those that plan and those that just see where it takes them. I am very much the former category.

A stylish person, for me, is one who draws your eye without necessarily being showy; they wear clothes that are beautifully cut, flatter the wearer, and show that they are not impervious to fashion, but not a slave to it either.

For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.

I try to read writers who are better than me because it inspires me to be better.

I love 'To Kill A Mockingbird' - it seems to offer up new layers every time you read it. I also love Kate Atkinson's 'Behind The Scenes At The Museum' - that's the book that started me writing.

In 'Me Before You,' the two characters popped into my head fully formed, which is really strange and unusual. Other books, I sit on them for two or three months. I have a whole routine: I buy a nice book; I hand-write all their characteristics. I put them through little tests just to see how they would react to things.

I have read books that are so cliched and lazy, my eyes have bled. But I also have read books marketed under the chick-lit umbrella that are so honest, clever and gritty that I've wanted to give up writing and paint walls instead.

Chick-lit may be staggering on its heels, but women's fiction is alive and kicking.

Sometimes, Clark, you are pretty much the only thing that makes me want to get up in the morning.

Sometimes when you get hammered till the small hours you feel pretty good in the morning, but really it's just because you're still a bit drunk. That old hangover is just toying with you, working out when to bite.

It's complicated.' 'So's quantitative easing. But I still get that it means printing money.

She went kind of pink and laughed, the kind of laugh you do when you know yo shouldn't be laughing. The kind of laugh that spoke of a conspiracy.

Nobody fights you like your own sister; nobody else knows the most vulnerable parts of you and will aim for them without mercy.

I know this isn’t a conventional love story. I know there are all sorts of reasons I shouldn’t even be saying what I am. But I love you. I do. I knew it when I left Patrick. And I think you might even love me a little bit.

I chose to believe that God, a benign God, would understand our sufferings and forgive us our trespasses.

Astonishingly, not all girls get dressed just to please men.

Real friends were the kind where you pick up where you'd left off, whether it be a week since you'd seen each other or two years.

I see all this talent, all this...this energy and brightness and...potential. Yes. Potential. And I cannot for the life of me see how you can be content to live this tiny life. This life that will take place almost entirely within a five mile radius and contain nobody who will ever surprise you or push you or show you things that will leave your head spinning and unable to sleep at night.

I worked out what would make me happy, and I worked out what I wanted to do, and I trained myself to do the job that would make those two things happen

You cut yourself off from all sorts of experiences because you tell yourself you are ‘not that sort of person’” “But, I’m not.” “How do you know? You’ve done nothing, been nowhere. How do you have the faintest idea what kind of person you are?

That evening she glowed. She gave off a vibration of energy that he suspected only he could detect. Do I do this to you?, he wondered, as he watched her eat. Or is this just the relief of being out from under the forbidden eye of that husband of yours?

I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.

How could you live each day knowing that you were simply whiling away the days until your own death?

Know that you hold my heart, my hopes, in your hands.

You can only actually help someone who wants to be helped.

Sit here long enough you get to know everything. You listen, see ?" She taps the side of her head. "Nobody listens any more. Everyone knows what they want to hear, but nobody actually listens.

I was once told by someone wise that writing is perilous as you cannot always guarantee your words will be read in the spirit in which they were written.

How is it possible to exist with so much pain?

All that counts is the truth. Without it you're basically just juggling people's daft ideas.

And I don't want to look at you every day, to see you naked,to watch you wandering around the annexe in your crazy dresses and not...not be able to do what I want with you. Oh, Clark,if you had any idea what I want to do to you right now.And I...i can't live with that knowledge. I can't. It's Not who I am. I can't be the kind of man who just...accepts.

... if you're going to wear a dress like that you need to wear it with confidence. You need to fill it out mentally as well as physically.

What if I like watching television? What if I don't want to do much else other than read a book?... What if I'm tired when I get home? What if I don't fill my days with frenetic activity?" "But one day you might wish you had

There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, where time stalls and slips, where life---real life---seems to exist at one remove.

Push yourself. Don’t settle. Wear those stripy legs with pride. And if you insist on settling down with some ridiculous bloke, make sure some of this is squirreled away somewhere. Knowing you still have possibilities is a luxury. Knowing I might have given them to you has alleviated something for me.

I held him close and said nothing, all the while telling him silently that he was loved. Oh, but he was loved.

I'm not going to try and change you mind." "If you're here, you accept it's my choice. This is the first thing I've been in control of since the accident." "I know." And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak...

I could hear her babbling away beside me, but I wasn't really paying attention. I could barely focus on anything. My nerve endings seemed to have come alive; they almost jangled with anticipation I was going to see Will. Whatever else, I had that. I could almost feel the miles between us shrinking, as if we were at two ends of some invisible elastic thread.

I can't do this because I can't...I can't be the man I want to be with you. And that means that this - this just becomes...another reminder of what I am not.

Just hold on. Just for a minute." "Are you all right ?" I found my gaze dropping towards his chair, afraid some part of him was pinched, or trapped, that I had got something wrong. "I'm fine. I just...I don't want to go in just yet. I just want to sit and not have to think about...I just...want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more...

​​​​​​You're going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. It always does feel strange to be knocked out of your comfort zone.

I hadn’t realized that music could unlock things in you, could transport you to somewhere even the composer hadn’t predicted. It left an imprint in the air around you, as if you carried its remnants with you when you went.

And then, just like that, my heart broke. My face crumpled, my composure went and I held him tightly and I stopped caring that he could feel the shudder of my sobbing body because grief swamped me. It overwhelmed me and tore at my heart and my stomach and my head and it pulled me under, and I couldn’t bear it. I honestly thought I couldn’t bear it.

I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live.

They began to tune up, and suddenly the auditorium was filled with a single sound - the most alive, three-dimensional thing I had ever heard. It made the hairs on my skin stand up, my breath catch in my throat....I felt the music like a physical thing; it didn't just sit in my ears, it flowed through me, around me, made my senses vibrate. It made my skin prickle and my palms dampen...It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

I am conscious that knowing me has caused you pain, and grief, and I hope that one day when you are less angry with me and less upset you will see not just that I could only have done the thing that I did, but also that this will help you live a really good life, a better life, than if you hadn’t met me.

I told him I loved him,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And he just said it wasn’t enough.” Her eyes were wide and bleak . “How am I supposed to live with that?

I thought, briefly, that I would never feel as intensely connected to the world, to another human being, as I did at that moment.

Only you, Will Traynor, could tell a woman how to wear a bloody dress.

Cheap as chips, cheap as chips, it's a British expression. There's no couture in their darling.

I thought the world had actually ended. I thought nothing good could ever happen again. I thought anything might happen if I wasn't vigilant. I didn't eat. I didn't go out. I didn't want to see anyone. But I survived, Paul. Much to my own surprise, I got through it. And life...well, gradually became livable again.

So this is it. You are scored on my heart, Clark. You were from the first day you walked in, with your ridiculous clothes and your bad jokes and your complete inability to ever hide a single thing you felt.

I just... want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.

If all we are allowed is hours, minutes, I want to be able to etch each of them on to my memory with exquisite clarity so that I can recall them at moments like this, when my very soul feels blackened.

But don't blame me for the food. My wife knows a hundred and one ways to incinerate a cow, and as far as I can tell she's still experimenting.

Sometimes life is a series of obstacles, a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, she realizes suddenly, it is simply a matter of blind faith.

Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward.

I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I’m not allowed a say in yours? But I had promised.

Do you know how hard it is to say nothing? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I had practiced not saying anything the whole way from the airport, and it was still nearly killing me.

The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life--or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else's life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window--is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people.

Somewhere in this world is a man who loves you, who understands how precious and clever and kind you are. A man who has always loved you and, to his detriment, suspects he always will.

Just live well. Just live

Believe me, you have to have a certain confidence in your powers of descretion to let a dentist loose with a drill in your mouth less than an hour after you've...um...entertained his wife.

There is a whole lot more to life than winning.

I frowned at the list. “So… I’ll go back and tell the Traynors that I’m going to get their suicidal quadriplegic son drunk, spend their money on strippers and lap dancers, and then trundle him off to the Disability Olympics—

You know, you spend your whole life feeling like you don't quite fit in anywhere. And then you walk into a room one day, whether it's at university or an office or some kind of club, and you just go, 'Ah. There they are.' And suddenly you feel at home.

All I can say is that you make me... you make me into someone I couldn't even imagine. You make me happy, even when you're awful. I would rather be with you - even the you that you seem to think is diminished - than with anyone else in the world.

The only thing Jess really cared about were those two children and letting them know they were okay. Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you'd be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved.

We are all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God's purpose to understand.

There is a hunger in you. A fearlessness. You just buried it, like most people do.

When you put someone down all the time, eventually they stop listening to the sensible stuff.

And it was suddenly very simple: There was no choice.

Everything takes time... and that's something that your generation find it a lot harder to adjust to. You have all grown up expecting things to go your way almost instantaneously. You all expect to live the lives you chose. Especially a successful young man like yourself. But it takes time.

...I told him a story of two people. Two people who shouldn't have met, and who didn't like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other.

She does not want to feel even the faintest temptation to call his mobile number, as she had done obsessively for the first year after his death so she could hear his voice on the answering service. Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the Anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off.

Push yourself. Don't Settle. Just live well. Just LIVE.