Home > Author > Tanya Byrne
1 " Doctor Gilyard was right, Juliet and I do have a lot in common. She lost her mother, I lost my mother. She lost her father, I lost my father. She had to start again, I had to start again. She had to pretend to be someone else, I had to pretend to be someone else. But where she was better for it, I was worse. Where she used what happened to make her stronger, I held on to it. I let it distil into something filthy and black. And I hated her for that. Hated her. "
― Tanya Byrne , Heart-Shaped Bruise
2 " It was like this blackness that crept into the corners of my life until everything was grey and dirty. My insides felt burnt out, like if you cut me open, all you would find would be smoke. No heart. No bones. There was nothing left, just the anger. It followed me everywhere. It sat on my bed and watched me sleep and when I had to eat, it looked at me across the table. "
3 " But I can't talk to her because she's going through hell and she doesn't need to hear me ranting about a vase. But that happens sometimes, Rose, you want to talk about stuff but you can't because your friends are going through things--real things, painful things-- and you can't talk to them because your stuff doesn't feel as important as theirs. "
4 " That's what you won't find on Google," I wanted to tell Doctor Gilyard today. "Who I used to be. "
5 " All my life, all I'd ever heard was: Emily's so shy, Emily's so quiet, Emily's so clever. Thinking back on it now, I don't know if I was ever any of those things, or if I just became shy and quiet and clever because everyone said I was. "
6 " I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you, if you’ve loved someone, loved who they are, then found out they’re not that person after all. It doesn’t just break your heart, does it? It breaks you. Then you’re not who you thought you were, either. "
7 " We all know what we had, don’t we? We just never thought we could lose it. "
8 " Maybe we'll burn bright for a few weeks then collaps in on ourselves, but thats how galaxies are made anyway. "
― Tanya Byrne , Afterlove
9 " Why do you hate her, Emily?""For reminding me that I did this to myself. "
10 " China shop rules, Juliet: you break it, you pay for it, and you broke me. You got what you deserved. "
11 " : don't worry about dying, because while you're worrying about that, you won't notice the tiny thousand ways that you die every day. Everything someone tells you to grow up.Each time someone tells you to be realistic. Every time someone tells you that you're too much and not enough, all at once. Don't listen to them.You don't need to be better than anyone else, you just need to be better than who you used to be." Pgs 355-356 "
12 " Not everyone knows how to say I love you so learn to hear the different ways they tell you. They say it all the time. "
13 " She throws her head back and laughs and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. "
14 " It's not like I ever thought I'd live forever - or wanted to - but it had never occurred to me that I might die before I'd lived. "
― Tanya Byrne , Follow Me Down
15 " And maybe she isn't the one. Maybe we'll burn bright for a few weeks then collapse in on ourselves, but Mr. Moreno says that's how galaxies are made anyway. "
16 " Everyone deserves someone they don't have to explain themselves to. "
― Tanya Byrne , For Holly
17 " I know love isn't enough, that you can love someone with every bit of yourself and still fuck it up beyond repair. And that's okay because sometimes they're your one but you're not their one, which is kind of cruel, but what can you do? "
18 " I am the first and last and nothing inbetween. The mad one. The wild one. The one who sees things that aren't there. I am to be unloaded on, to be bled on and cried all over. I am the one they experiment with. The one they can let go with because I'll never tell. I am the one they have saved in their phone as Alfie or Harry or Luke. The keeper of secrets and soother of guilt. But I am never the one. "
19 " I didn't know until then how much i liked him. I liked the way he called me Miss Okomma. I liked they way he said it, how he didn't hesitate, didn't stumble, as though he'd practised it. I thought about it too much, about him too much; the space between each thought getting shorter and shorter until days became hours became minutes became heartbeats and then he was all I could think about. "
20 " It doesn't feel like it now, but one day you'll be scared of becoming the person you are today. "
