Ruth Ware > Quotes

“People don’t change,” Nina said bitterly. “They just get more punctilious about hiding their true selves.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we're no good, that if we don't make this promotion or ace that exam we'll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are Maybe that's true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“A lie can outlast any truth.”
― ruth ware, The Lying Game

“It was growing dark, and somehow the shadows made it feel as if all the trees had taken a collective step towards the house, edging in to shut out the sky.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“I always thought that being self-sufficient was a strength, but now I realize it’s a kind of weakness, too.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“There’s a reason why we keep thoughts inside our heads for the most part—they’re not safe to be let out in public.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“Maybe that was closer to the truth--we weren't captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“You’re never an ex-addict, you’re just an addict who hasn’t had a fix in a while.”
― Ruth Ware, The Lying Game

“Some situations have no simple resolution; all we can do is steer the course that causes the least harm.”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“People do go mad, you know, if you stop them from sleeping for long enough...”
― Ruth Ware, The Turn of the Key

“The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold inhospitable glass.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“There was a little spritz of sequined leaves across the right shoulder because you didn’t seem to be able to get away with none. Apparently the majority of ball gowns were designed by five-year-old girls armed with glitter guns, but at least this one didn’t look entirely like an explosion in a Barbie factory.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“There’s no reason, on paper at least, why I need these pills to get through life. I had a great childhood, loving parents, the whole package. I wasn’t beaten, abused, or expected to get nothing but As. I had nothing but love and support, but that wasn’t enough somehow. My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are. Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices. But I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The depression I fell into after university wasn’t about exams and self-worth, it was something stranger, more chemical, something that no talking cure was going to fix. Cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, psychotherapy—none of it really worked in the way that the pills did. Lissie says she finds the notion of chemically rebalancing your mood scary, she says it’s the idea of taking something that could alter how she really is. But I don’t see it that way; for me it’s like wearing makeup—not a disguise, but a way of making myself more how I really am, less raw. The best me I can be.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“It's not that Nina doesn't feel stuff. She just deals with it differently than most people. Sarcasm is her defense against life.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“I jumped to a conclusion that was so wrong, it was almost completely right.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“Time healed, they said, but it wasn’t true, or not completely. The first raw wound of loss had closed and silvered over, yes, but the scar it had left would never heal. It would always be there, aching and tender.”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“You’d think people would be wary of spilling to a writer. You’d think they’d know that we’re essentially birds of carrion, picking over the corpses of dead affairs and forgotten arguments to recycle them in our work—zombie reincarnations of their former selves, stitched into a macabre new patchwork of our own devising. Tom,”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“Because it was the lies that got me here in the first place. And I have to believe that it’s the truth that will get me out.”
― Ruth Ware, The Turn of the Key

“There was something strangely naked about it, like we were on a stage set, playing our parts to an audience of eyes out there in the wood.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“Never believe it, Hal. Never believe your own lies.

Because superstition was a trap – that was what she had learned, in the years of plying her trade on the pier. Touching wood, crossing fingers, counting magpies – they were all lies, all of them. False promises designed to give the illusion of control and meaning in a world in which the only destiny came from yourself. You can't predict the future, Hal knew.”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“I hate being driven—driving is like karaoke—your own is epic, other people’s is just embarrassing or alarming.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“The cards do not predict the future. All thy can do is show us how a given situation may turn out, based on the energies we bring to the reading. Another day, another mood, a different set of energies, and the same question could have a completely different answer....We have free will. The answer the cards give can turn us in our path.”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“You can’t influence fate, or change what’s out of your control. But you can choose what you yourself do with the cards you’re dealt.”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“One for sorrow Two for joy Three for a girl Four for a boy Five for silver Six for gold Seven for a secret Never to be told”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“A wall, after all, isn’t just about keeping others out. It can also be for trapping people inside.”
― Ruth Ware, The Lying Game

“The people who came to her booth were seeking meaning and control – but they were looking in the wrong place. When they gave themselves over to superstition, they were giving up on shaping their own destiny.”
― Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway

“I love ports. I love the smell of tar and sea air, and the scream of the gulls. Maybe it's years of taking the ferry to France for summer holidays, but a harbor gives me a feeling of freedom in a way that an airport never does. Airports say work and security checks and delays. Ports say... I don't know. Something completely different. Escape, maybe.”
― Ruth Ware, The Woman in Cabin 10

“I know him by heart.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood

“There are days when I don’t hear a single human voice, apart from the radio, and you know what? I quite like that.”
― Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood