Quotessence
Home / Authors / Sarah-Kate Lynch Biography

Sarah-Kate Lynch Biography

Author

Related Quotes

“Only worry about what you absolutely know about,' Mr. Worthington said to me, putting my mind back where it belonged. 'That's the key. Worrying about anything else is just a waste of time and emotion. I know that seems obvious but honestly, the more information you have, the less your imagination can run away with you so the secret is to find out as much as you can about what your particular problem is....and you'll be amazed at how this simplifies things. You no longer have to worry about the what ifs.”

ImaginationEmotionWorryInformationWaste Of Time
Book:On Top of Everything
Create image

“Theo and Sugar dated, just like normal people only slower. He bought her heart-shaped boxes of candy and living plants for her rooftop and sent her cards, one every day by U.S. mail, each with a handwritten message. 'Can't wait to see you tonight,' the first one said. 'I love your laugh,' read the second. 'Sorry for spilling ketchup on your dress,' came the third. She made him pork chops with honey mustard sauce and her favorite date-and-honey nut loaf and a fetching gingham jacket for Princess, who ate it the moment they turned their back on him.”

DatingPrincessSugar And Theo
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“[D]espite her alternative leanings, it turned out Crystal was not particularly psyco-babbly or airy-fairy or tree-huggy, as one might have expected. In fact, the first thing she did was write a list. She said writing lists helped calm her down when she was stressed about anything because it put problems in order. You can look at a list of things and see how you can tackle each one separately without feeling sick about it, she said. Whereas if they all just stayed jumbled in your mind in one great bit sticky ball you never got to consider them individually. She actually spoke a lot of sense for someone with toe rings and a Chinese tattoo.”

StressCalmListsPsychobabble
Book:On Top of Everything
Create image

“She was a great wife...and a wonderful mother, a good daughter, a devoted sister and a truly nice person, which doesn't sound like much but it was one of her ambitions, to be a nice person, and she really got there, I think. She was always there. Or close, anyway. Of course, she did spend her first thrity-nine years worrying too much and waiting for rotten things to happen to her. Then when they did, and some of the things were obviously, really, truly rotten, she realised she could have a lot more fun not waiting for them. So you know what she did then? She just stopped seeing the rot.”

WorryOutlookRotten Life
Book:On Top of Everything
Create image

“In Santa Fe her whole yard had been crowded with different-sized terra-cotta pots, out of which she grew everything from rosemary and lavender to ornamental pear and plum trees and even peppers, although they were not particularly popular with the bees. In Colorado she'd created a fertile oasis out of old gas cans and cut-off oil drums. Her neighbors had been skeptical to begin with but once her creepers grew up and her flowers draped down and her shrubs fluffed out, the junkyard ugly duckling was transformed into the proverbial backyard swan.”

HerbsColoradoFruit TreesSanta FeSugar WallacePotted PlantsGreen Thumb
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“It was true. Sugar did treat her bees like next of kin but then again, they were. Along with her manners, the accent she tried so hard to soften, a single china cup covered in blue daisies and a weathered box of essential oils, they were all she carried with her from her past. Her bees relied on her for shelter and food but she relied on them too. She made her living from their honey, not just the healthful liquid itself but from the salves and gels and tinctures and remedies she created and sold at farm stands or farmers' markets wherever she lived. It was the most symbiotic of relationships.”

HoneyBeesMementosSugar WallaceNext Of Kin
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“In the past I think I had corralled rotten things into groups of three because at some level it gave me the impression I was controlling them, keeping track of them. In my world I believed the universe would only dish out so much shite before it realised it had overdone it and corrected matters. That, of course, turned out to be nonsense. The truth is that sometimes the shite just keeps on coming and that is what is so unfair. But here's the thing: it's never all shite. If you can wake up in the morning for just long enough to breathe in and out and see the sun shining, you're already surviving it. You're already if not getting around it, at least getting over it, getting past it. And who knows what can happen then?”

Bad ThingsOutlookSurviving Tragedy
Book:On Top of Everything
Create image

“Perched up on salvaged bricks, the half-pipes made perfect planters with an industrial edge that oddly complemented Sugar's pretty favorites: pansies, lantana, verbena and heliotrope. She laid two of them by the long wall of the taller building next door and planted a clematis vine at one end and a moonflower vine at the other: the clematis because the variety she picked had the prettiest purple bloom and the moonflower because it opened in the early evening and emanated a heavenly scent just when a person most felt like smelling one.”

FlowersSugar WallacePotted PlantsRooftop Garden
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“She was tall and slender with long dark hair that swung in a shiny ponytail from one shoulder to the other, her dress swirling beneath her cinched waist. He thought suddenly of watermelon. It was hard to come by back in Scotland but even before he'd ever tasted one in the flesh it had reminded him of summer (which was also hard to come by back in Scotland). He knew what watermelon tasted like now; it was one of his favorite things. He could almost feel it in his mouth as he stood there, that cold sweet powerful explosion of almost nothing. He needed to find a slice as soon as possible.”

Sugar WallaceWatermelon
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“Sugar had grown up in Charleston, South Carolina: possibly the most luscious of the world's garden cities. Behind every wrought-iron gate or exposed-brick wall in the picturesque peninsula blooming between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers lay a sweet-scented treasure trove of camellias, roses, gardenias, magnolias, tea olives, azaleas and jasmine, everywhere, jasmine. With its lush greenery, opulent vines, sumptuous hedgerows and candy-colored window boxes, it was no wonder the city's native sons and daughters believed it to be the most beautiful place on earth. In her first years of exile Sugar had tried to cultivate a reminder of the luxuriant garden delights she had left behind, struggling in sometimes hostile elements to train reluctant honeysuckle and sulky sweet potato vines or nurture creeping jenny and autumn stonecrop.”

FlowersPlantsSouth CarolinaGardensSugar Wallace
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“Seeing her mama wiggle and swagger like that always reminded Sugar of her own shortcomings in this department. She knew the sort of daughter Etta wished she had- another wiggler and swaggerer- but that flirtatious behavior just didn't come naturally to Sugar. She wasn't a tomboy, exactly. Her mother would have shot her rather than let that happen, but Sugar didn't particularly like parties or shopping trips or lengthy visits to the beauty parlor, all of which her mother adored. She preferred helping her grandfather with his bees on his orchard farther up the Ashley River; she always had. She liked reading books on her own or walking the family dog, Miss Pickles. Worse, she couldn't manage high heels no matter how hard she tried, which was an utter disgrace to her southern roots. The pretty only daughter of a well-known beauty married to one of the city's wealthier sons should by rights follow directly in her mother's footsteps in nothing less than three-inch stilettos, as far as Etta was concerned. But she and Sugar were cut from different cloth.”

Mother And DaughterSugar WallaceDifferences With One AnotherEtta Wallace
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image

“All the bees knew Sugar; they carried their feelings for her with them in their genes, they could sense her from more than half a mile away and would no sooner find her a threat than fly to the moon. But Elizabeth the First sensed Grady Parkes from half a mile away too, and her resulting hum was not one of blissful content. It was his smell, partly: an aftershave, with base notes of tobacco and cedar and a hint of bitter herbs, and his natural scent, which was too sour for Elizabeth the First's liking. She registered him as something to watch out for and passed this on through the realm.”

FeelingsBeesAftershaveSugar WallaceElizabeth The FirstGrady Parkes
Book:The Wedding Bees
Create image