Home > Work > The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place QUOTES

The Hiding Place QUOTES

1 " ..all tragedies are [unforeseeable]. That’s what makes them so hard to bear. The acceptance that life is random and often cruel. We seek to attribute blame. We cannot accept that things happen without reason. That not everything is within our control. We make ourselves small gods of our own universe without any of God’s mercy, wisdom or grace. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

2 " We romanticize the past with our period dramas and glossy film adaptations. A bit like we do with nature. Nature is violent, unpredictable and unforgiving. Eat or be eaten. That's nature. However much Attenborough or Coldplay you wrap it up in. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

3 " People say time is a great healer. They're wrong. Time is simply a great eraser. It rolls on and on regardless, eroding our memories, chipping away at those great big boulders of misery until there's nothing left but sharp little fragments, still painful but small enough to bear. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

4 " The past isn't real. It's just a story we tell ourselves, and sometimes we lie. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

5 " You might not be able to judge a book by it's cover, but you can certainly judge the person who owns the book. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

6 " Never go back. That's what people always tell you. Things will have changed. They won't be the way you remembered. Leave the past in the past. Of course, the last one is easier said than done. The past has a habit of repeating on you. Like bad curry, "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

7 " Grief is personal. It isn’t something you can share, like a box of chocolates. It is yours and yours alone. A spiked steel ball chained to your ankle. A coat of nails around your shoulders. A crown of thorns. No one else can feel your pain. They cannot walk in your shoes because your shoes are full of broken glass and every time you try and take a step forward it rips your soles to bloody shreds. Grief is the worst kind of torture and it never ends. You "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

8 " And after all, kids will be kids. The problem is, if you let kids be kids, then before you know it they're smearing their faces in pigs' blood, pushing each other off the edge of cliffs and smashing their mates' heads in with rocks. Our job as teachers, adults and parents is to stop, at every level, kids being kids, or they'll tear the fucking world down around our ears. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

9 " A reader cracks the spine, thumbs the pages, absorbs every word and nuance. You might not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can definitely judge the person who owns the book. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

10 " People say that life finds a way. Perhaps, sometimes, death does too. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

11 " We're all too busy, too distracted by the sheer effort of getting through each day - working, paying the bills, the mortgage, shopping - that we don't want to look deeper. We don't dare. We want things to be fine. To be "hunky-dory". Because we simply haven't got the energy to deal with it if they're not. It's only when something bad happens, something irretrievable, that we see things properly. And then it's too late "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

12 " People say time is a great healer. They’re wrong. Time is simply a great eraser. It rolls on and on regardless, eroding our memories, chipping away at those great big boulders of misery until there’s nothing left but sharp little fragments, still painful but small enough to bear. Broken hearts don’t mend. Time just takes the pieces and grinds them to dust. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

13 " Teaching is not all about rankings and inspection reports. It’s about helping our young people to become decent, rounded human beings, and getting them through their teens in one piece. If you lose them at this age, you lose them forever. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

14 " That’s the problem with life. It never gives you a heads-up. Never offers you even the slightest clue that this might be an important moment. You might want to take some time, drink it in. It never lets you know that something is worth holding on to until it’s gone. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

15 " Never trust a person whose bookshelves are lined with pristine books, or worse, someone who places the books with their covers facing outwards. That person is not a reader. That person is a shower. Look at me and my great literary taste. Look at these acclaimed tomes that I have, most probably, never read. A reader cracks the spine, thumbs the pages, absorbs every word and nuance. You might not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can definitely judge the person who owns the book. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

16 " signs like DANGER, FORBIDDEN and NO TRESPASSING might as well have read: WELCOME, COME IN and DARE YOU. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

17 " A life full of promise. But that’s all life ever is. A promise. Not a guarantee. We like to believe we have our place all set out in the future, but we only have a reservation. Life can be canceled at any moment, with no warning, no refund, no matter how far along you are in the journey. Even if you’ve barely had time to take in the scenery. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

18 " Nice cottage. Nice car. Nice clothes. But you never really know. You never really know what goes on inside. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

19 " If Arnhill was a living organism, then the mine was its beating, smoke-bellowing heart. "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place

20 " My little sister. Eight going on eighteen. Funny, feisty, stubborn, silly. Stupidly intelligent, annoyingly sweet. Hilarious, frustrating, entertaining. The boniest yet somehow also the softest little body to ever envelop me in a gangly web of arms and legs. A toothy smile that could shatter the hardest heart. A tough little tomboy who still wanted to believe in Santa Claus and magic. But then, who doesn't? "

― C.J. Tudor , The Hiding Place