The Paris Apartment Quotes

“But that’s what being poor does to you; it shortens your childhood. It hardens your ambition.”

“I could not explain that I simply wanted someone to love. Wholehearted, unreserved, requited.”

“It’s a beautiful building, but there’s something rotten at its heart. Now he’s discovered it he can smell the stench of it everywhere.”

“You know, I read somewhere that sixty percent of us can’t go more than ten minutes without lying. Little slippages: to make outselves sound better, more attractive, to others. White lies to avoid causing offence. SO it’s not like I’ve done anything out of the ordinary. It’s only human.”

“For so many years my insignificance and invisibility have been a mask I can hide behind. And in the process I have avoided raking up the past. Raking up the shame.”

“When I married Jacques I understood it as an exchange. My youth and beauty for his wealth. Over the years, as is the way with this particular kind of contract, my worth only diminished as his increased.”

“I only hope she knows what she’s doing. Climbing so high, so quickly: it only makes for further to fall.”

“To others gardening is a form of creative abandon. To me it is a way of exerting control upon my surroundings.”

“There’s this expression in French. Être bien dans sa peau. To feel good in your own skin.”

“But also, I watch. I see everything and it gives me a strange kind of power, even if I’m the only one who’s aware of it.”

“She looks rich. Not flashy rich. The french equivalent of posh. You don’t have hair that perfect unless you spend your days basically doing nothing.”

“There’s something reckless about her- it feels as though she might do anything. Unpredictable. Dangerous. And given this morning’s outing she’s clearly got issues with the police.”

“I pause. Something about this doesn’t feel right. I’ve had to rely on my instincts quite a lot over the years. And I’ve also been here before. Hand clasped around the door handle. Not knowing what I’m going to find on the other side-”

“I don’t know how it has come to this. But I do know that it started with him coming here. Moving into the third floor. Benjamin Daniels. He destroyed everything.”

“He was a chameleon, an enigma. I had no idea, really, who I had invited under this roof, into the bosom of my family.”

“To signify class, good taste, the kind of breeding that cannot be bought.”

“We can do our family members down as much as we like. But the second an outsider insults them our blood seethes. At the end of the day I don’t like him- but I love him. And I see my own failures in him.”

“It’s so very like you, isn’t it? The elegant exterior, the cheap grubby reality inside.”

“They’re a family. They’re a family. And this isn’t Ben’s apartment: not really. Right now I’m sitting here inside someone’s family home. Why on earth didn’t Ben tell me this? Did it not seem important? Did he somehow not know?”

“It’s a beautiful building, but there’s something rotten at its heart. Now he’s discovered it he can smell the stench of it everywhere.”