Home > Author > Libby Page
1 " When Kate was younger, stories were her friends when she found people challenging. She searched them out, hiding among them in the library and tucking herself into their pages. She folded herself into the shape of Hermione Granger or George from The Famous Five or Catherine Moreland from Northanger Abbey and tried to be them for a day. When she started secondary school her friends were the characters she met in the pages of her books. They sat with her in the library as she snuck mouthfuls of sandwich behind books so the librarian wouldn't see. (The librarian always saw, but pretended not to.) "
― Libby Page , The Lido
2 " In a large townhouse, a family is spread out across its rooms, each living in their own state but under one flag "
3 " Maybe I was incredibly naive, but I wanted all of him, always. That was the only way I knew how to love him. "
4 " Love is love like a tree is a tree. It can be a sapling or a hundred years old oak, but it still has a rout, lifetime and is left on mercy and disfavor of the seasons "
5 " Sometimes hope can be the most painful thing. "
6 " She took the loneliness out of being alone. "
7 " When you're my age you'll understand,' she says. 'You begin to miss yourself. "
8 " It was rare that she got dressed up and went out, but each time a dinner party or the Christmas dinner with the other library staff came round she would stand in front of the mirror asking George to tell her if the dress was too short or too long, whether her makeup was okay, and if her hair looked fussy or too plain. He always smiled and told her she looked beautiful but she didn't believe him. She would believe him now - she was beautiful. She hopes Kate realizes it before she is eighty-seven. "
9 " Maybe it's only about one thing, but even that is something. At that moment the darkness, although still lurking from background, withdraws. "
10 " ...around puberty when the girls' bodies felt to them like uncomfortable clothes they'd love to wriggle out of. She remembers the transformation: the giggling rabble became a subdued group by the water's edge, arms wrapped around themselves to cover the shame of their perfect, hideous bodies. "
11 " She can't see the deep end but knows that if she keeps kicking she will eventually reach it. "
12 " My father had probably got himself into no fit state to leave the house and my mother would never have come on her own. I remember how disappointed I felt that they hadn’t been there, if not for me then for my brother, who was still small for his age and who shook when he collected his own prize from Mrs Brown, for science. "
― Libby Page , The Island Home
13 " That my parents were not incapable of love, I was just unlovable. "
14 " just enough money to buy our flat from the council, although each month I still feel the same panic that I might not be able to meet my mortgage payment. I always do manage it but the fear is still there, as familiar by now as the sound of my own breath. I’ve always been anxious about money. Because if something happens – if I get sick or the boiler breaks or I suddenly need something important for Ella, there’s no one to bail us out. "
15 " She was close to tears and I felt that old guilt and sadness rip through me – that I haven’t been able to give my daughter more. So many times, I’ve pictured a different kind of life for her. A life full of people: grandparents, cousins, siblings maybe, a father. "
16 " And for a while after leaving the island I would still have described myself as an artist, even when I was working in a bar and hadn’t touched a paintbrush in a long time. "
17 " understand,’ she says through her tears. ‘After everything you went through, of course you wanted to leave. But I just don’t understand why you didn’t keep in touch. We were best friends. For ages I wondered what I’d done wrong. I thought I didn’t matter to you. "
18 " At least I have Molly. That’s what I’ve always tried to tell myself. It feels greedy to want more when I have her. She has been the biggest joy in my life. And I guess when I started to realise that the big family I’d imagined might never exist I just tried to love her as much as four children. "
19 " The salty tang catches in the back of my throat, its familiarity even after all these years grabbing me in the stomach and twisting like a knot being tightened. "
20 " but I never really felt comfortable leaving Molly alone with them even if I couldn’t have told you in words exactly why – it was more a lingering sense of unease, a feeling of wanting to hold my daughter tightly to me whenever we were around them. But despite "
