Sally Rooney is my ultimate idol as a writer, especially in terms of the mechanics of writing, and in the wake of completing her entire canon this year, I want to make a post in celebration of what she means to me. I started with Beautiful World, Where Are You last year, then continued with Conversations with Friends that summer, and finally got around to reading Normal People this year. What I love most about all her novels is the language itself, and given that Normal People is my favorite of the three, I thought I’d celebrate with a post compiling my favorite quote from each chapter. My initial idea was to list my favorite quote from each page, which tells you just how much I admired the quality of the writing as I was reading the book, but ultimately I decided to scale it back in favor of something more simple.
January 2011
When people tell that story about Marianne washing her blouse in the sink, they act like it’s just funny, but Connell thinks the real purpose of the story is something else. Marianne has never been with anyone in school, no one has ever seen her undressed, no one even knows if she likes boys or girls, she won’t tell anyone. People resent that about her, and Connell thinks that’s why they tell the story, as a way of gawking at something they’re not allowed to see.
-Pg. 6
This is a classic example of what I love about Sally Rooney—the way she extrapolates depth from the minutiae of everyday life. Here an anecdote that initially serves simply to establish Marianne’s character as a “weird” social outcast ultimately takes on more weight as it becomes a much broader insight into the adolescent psyche. Even though I don’t remember anything like this happening at school, I can very much imagine people thinking and behaving this way. Something about the desire for access to the private, even intimate, details of the lives of your peers rings true. Throughout Normal People, there’s a suggestion that Marianne isn’t bullied simply because the bullies are nasty people, but because she comes across as unknowable and aloof, and her peers take this as Marianne thinking she’s better than them. Most people are desperate for social acceptance, and they resent her refusal to conform because it shines a light on something they themselves don’t have the courage to do.
February 2011
Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it. She had that feeling in school often, but it wasn’t accompanied by any specific images of what the real life might look or feel like. All she knew was that when it started, she wouldn’t need to imagine it anymore.
-Pg. 11
I remember feeling like this a few times in my youth. While I wasn’t like Marianne per se, I did also come from a small town, endured my fair share of bullying, and was at various points socially isolated. In this scene, Marianne’s sitting by herself on the school bus as they drive toward a school soccer game. I can definitely remember looking around at others, especially groups of friends that were chatting excitedly about something, and feeling like they were living life while I was simply observing them living it. The thing about small towns is that they can make you think that there’s very few things you can be if you stay there. You get a sense of there being all these different possible lives happening elsewhere by reading books or watching movies, and by comparison your small town feels very limiting. I couldn’t wait to leave the town I came from (Nailsea, near Bristol) and like Marianne I hoped that elsewhere I would find a life that came naturally to me.
March 2011
If he silently decides not to say something when they’re talking, Marianne will ask ‘what?’ within one or two seconds. This ‘what?’ question seems to him to contain so much: not just the forensic attentiveness to his silences that allows her to ask in the first place, but a desire for total communication, a sense that anything unsaid is an unwelcome interruption between them. He writes these things down, long run-on sentences with too many dependent clauses, sometimes connected with breathless semicolons, as if he wants to recreate a precise copy of Marianne in print, as if he can preserve her completely for future review.
-Pg. 25
This is such a fascinating extract to me. It’s always interesting to watch dynamics in their infancy, with each person going through the uncertain process of getting used to each other. I can’t say I’ve experienced this specific dynamic, but I can relate to that sense of being fascinated by someone that comes into your life, and the way you examine everything they do, how even a silence becomes something you have to interpret ad nauseum.
April 2011
Rachel, he says, would you ever fuck off?
-Pg. 41
This was just satisfying. Up until this point, Connell had tried to conform and keep his head down as much as possible. But here we see him overcome his insecurities for the first time and just say what he’s feeling, damn the consequences. This whole chapter was such an emotional rollercoaster, and perhaps the one I remember most vividly. Marianne has just had an awful life, where people are just downright horrible to her 24/7, both at home and at school. She finally takes a chance on socializing with her peers, she dresses up nice for the first time, she even finds the courage to dance—and then people are just rotten to her. No sooner does she give happiness a chance than she gets groped and then publicly ridiculed. There’s something about putting yourself out there only to get shot down that really affects me, because you’re so vulnerable when you’re trying something new like that. I think I was genuinely shaking when I read this scene. When Connell, who we know is terrified at the idea of non-conformity, finds the courage to take a stand, I had a rush of goosepimples. Also, Karen was an absolute legend in this chapter.
April 2011 (Two days later)
Connell wished he knew how other people conducted their private lives, so that he could copy from example.
-Pg. 49
Man, this one resonated with me so much. I still feel this now, but I felt it a lot as a teenager. I just wanted concrete, unambiguous instructions on how to act, especially when it came to things like what to say to girls and all that stuff. A lot of Connell’s thoughts and observations from this novel are very relatable for me; none more so than that wish you could just intuit what to do—and how from the outside looking in, that’s how it seemed everyone else was doing things.
August 2011
Denise decided a long time ago that it is acceptable for men to use aggression towards Marianne as a way of expressing themselves. As a child Marianne resisted, but now she simply detaches, as if it isn’t of any interest to her, which in a way it isn’t. Denise considers this a symptom of her daughter’s frigid and unlovable personality. She believes Marianne lacks ‘warmth’, by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.
-Pg. 65
This was really interesting. We don’t get much insight into why Marianne’s family are the way they are, but little passages like this give us the insights we crave so much. And we crave them because we can’t imagine why a family would act this way, and why a mother wouldn’t protect her own daughter. I actually wish there were more passages like this one to add substance to Marianne’s family life, but maybe there’s a reason they’re sparse.
November 2011
And in a way, the feeling provoked in Connell when Mr Knightley kisses Emma’s hand is not completely asexual, though its relation to sexuality is indirect. It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he uses as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them.
-Pg. 68-69
Sally Rooney couldn’t have known this when she was writing it, but this whole paragraph seemed to be describing the exact experience I was having reading this very book. Here Connell is intrigued by how invested he gets in the personal relationships of fictional characters, at how deeply it affects him, which is just what was happening to me, as I breathlessly anticipated what would come next for Marianne and Connell. I also like it because it echoes the quote from April 2011 (Two days later) where Connell is looking for guidance on how to best navigate his personal life. I’ve experienced this with other books I’ve been reading too, where even though I know the characters aren’t real, I realize that the person who wrote them was real, and that maybe there is something profound or useful I can learn from them.
February 2012
Connell has been casually seeing a friend of theirs called Teresa. Marianne has no real problem with Teresa, but finds herself frequently prompting Connell to say bad things about her for no reason, which he always refuses to do.
-Pg. 85
I like this one simply because it amuses me. There’s something very relatable and self-deprecating about it that puts a smile on my face. It’s just a little character-moment; Marianne’s being cheeky and Connell doesn’t take the bait, because that wouldn’t be like him, but he doesn’t hold her naked attraction toward him against her all the same, as he feels the same way. Even though he doesn’t always do it, it’s central to Connell’s character that he wants to be a good person.
April 2012
The conversations that follow are gratifying for Connell, often taking unexpected turns and prompting him to express ideas he had never consciously formulated before. They talk about the novels he’s reading, the research she studies, the precise historical moment that they are currently living in, the difficulty of observing such a moment in process. At times he has the sensation that he and Marianne are like figure-skaters, improvising their discussions so adeptly and in such perfect synchronisation that it surprises them both. She tosses herself gracefully into the air, and each time, without knowing how he’s going to do it, he catches her. Knowing that they’ll probably have sex again before they sleep probably makes the talking more pleasurable, and he suspects that the intimacy of their discussions, often moving back and forth from the conceptual to the personal, also makes the sex feel better.
-Pg. 97
This phase of the novel marks a high point in Marianne and Connell’s relationship where being in Dublin affords them this newfound freedom together. Later in the novel, Connell describes it as a “perfect time” in his life, and both of them look back on it as a time when neither of them felt lonely. I love this extract because it captures those halcyon days so well—who wouldn’t want to feel what Connell’s experiencing in this quote?
July 2012
It would be shameless to remind him of that day now that they’re once again in the car together, even though she would really like her flask back, or maybe it’s not about the flask, maybe she just wants to remind him he once fucked her in the back seat of the car they’re now sitting in, she knows it would make him blush, and maybe she wants to force him to blush as a sadistic display of power, but that wouldn’t be like her, so she says nothing.
-Pg. 117-118
This is a classic Marianne thought-train. I like this one because it’s funny and relatable. We’ve all been there where we’ve absently toyed with intrusive thoughts, things we think about saying that we know we never will, imagining the reactions we’ll get. I also love how introspective Marianne is here, realizing that there’s a deeper motivation beneath wanting her flask back. Like the flask in the glovebox that she’s too polite to ask for, their life as a couple is also locked away. And yet it’s so close, and this scene captures well how they’re figuring out what they can be to each other in the wake of their break-up.
September 2012
Marianne is the only one who ever triggers these feelings in him, the strange dissociative feeling, like he’s drowning and time doesn’t exist properly anymore.
-Pg. 133
I haven’t got too much to say about this one, but I love when Sally Rooney adds details like these, where we get an insight into how characters affect one another; what they mean to one another. Sally Rooney said in an interview that Normal People didn’t start with either Marianne or Connell—rather, it started with their dynamic. She deliberately wrote the book with the dynamic as the crux of the story, and the two of them as individuals in service of it. This quote is taken from the scene where Marianne tells Connell that she lets Jamie beat her, and how this revelation shocks and disturbs him.
January 2013
When she thinks about how little she respects him, she feels disgusting and begins to hate herself, and these feelings trigger in her an overwhelming desire to be subjugated and in a way broken.
-Pg. 138
This quote takes place after Marianne and Jamie have been together for about 7 or 8 months, and suggests that her decision to date him is in some way pathological, and connected to the way her father and brother abused her growing up. Again, it’s a quintessential Sally Rooney quote, in which she articulates so clearly and so evocatively why the characters do what they do. Even in real life, I love those rare moments when people articulate their behavior, feelings, and experiences like this.
July 2013
It’s like something he assumed was just a painted backdrop all his life has revealed itself to be real: foreign cities are real, and famous artworks, and underground railway systems, and remnants of the Berlin Wall. That’s money, the substance that makes the world real. There’s something so corrupt and sexy about it.
-Pg. 160
This is another Connell quote that just resonates with me so much. This is so relatable. In terms of my own life, I experienced this feeling when I went to the United States for the first time. The U.S. and its people had always felt unreal to me, like it was a mythical place that only belonged in movies, books, or the news. Then all of a sudden, I had the opportunity to visit there when I studied abroad, and I was taking a guided tour through Graceland, or overlooking the Grand Canyon. It was surreal, and being there in person gave those places substance. But that’s the thing, if you don’t have the money, then places like those are reduced to photographs, and they feel like impressions of themselves rather than something tangible.
December 2013
Outside her breath rises in a fine mist and the snow keeps falling, like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake.
-Pg. 199
I love this one. It’s poetic and heartbreaking in equal measure. This sentence ends an upsetting chapter where we’re worried about Marianne and her long-term ability to look after herself. It’s quite a heavy chapter and this line is just the perfect way to end it as Rooney effortlessly blends imagery with characterization.
March 2014
Their feelings were suppressed so carefully in everyday life, forced into smaller and smaller spaces, until seemingly minor events took on insane and frightening significance.
-Pg. 212
This quote is taken from a scene in which Connell is reflecting on playing football with Rob in their youth, and how it was somehow socially-acceptable for boys to show affection in that context. As someone that played a lot of football my teenage years, I resonated very deeply with this quote. When you’re a teenager, you’re hardwired to make personal connections outside of your family unit, which leads to a lot of conformity on the schoolyard. It’s so important to be accepted. When you’re a teenager in a small town, there’s an even greater tendency towards conformity. And then on top of that, masculinity further limits your behaviors as a teenage boy. Before you hit puberty, you’re somewhat untouched by these societal forces; boys can have typically feminine hobbies, they can hang out with girls without it being weird, they can behave in ways that aren’t “manly”. Then one day you’re a teenager and you need that social acceptance, which is when social constructs like masculinity start to condition you. All of a sudden there’s a right thing and a wrong thing to say. You start to think about how to talk, how to act, how to dress, etc. I remember a lot of guys at school, including myself, would talk about how much we missed life in Primary School, before we hit puberty; how you didn’t even think about things, you just did them. We wouldn’t have connected it to ideas about gender back then. But sport offered a kind of escape. Back then football was all we did—either we’d be playing it or watching it. It was a space in which we felt like we could be masculine but also emotional. And there were lots of moments where celebrating a goal or a victory led to displays of affection that just never seemed possible otherwise. To add to that, your life feels so small back then. Obviously, your life is limited by your age; as a kid you’re going to school and that’s it. But there are other limiting factors like gender roles, economic barriers, and living in a very small, rural community. So little moments like winning a game of football did take on this larger-than-life significance for us, and back then we’d romanticize the hell out of them.
July 2014
Not for the first time Marianne thinks cruelty does not only hurt the victim, but the perpetrator also, and maybe more deeply and more permanently. You learn nothing very profound about yourself simply by being bullied; but by bullying someone else you learn something you can never forget.
-Pg. 226
I’ve always been interested in books about bullying, like Mieko Kawakami’s Heaven or Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and I love when Sally Rooney explores this theme in Normal People. I always wondered whether bullies reflect on their behavior after they leave school, or whether there might be some kind of cognitive dissonance at play that blinds them to it. How do they feel when they see depictions of bullying in popular media? How many would be interested in reaching out to their former victims if they could? Would it give them peace to be forgiven? The psychology of bullying is fascinating to me. This quote is mostly in reference to Rob, and it’s suggested that his behavior was mostly born out of a desperation to be liked and accepted. I feel like this could also extend to Alan too, who seems obsessed with carefully managing his reputation in town, and feels threatened by Marianne’s being a part of the wider world.
July 2014 (Five Minutes Later)
She’s missing some primal instinct, self-defence or self-preservation, which makes other human beings comprehensible. You lean in expecting resistance, and everything just falls away in front of you. Still, he would lie down and die for her at any minute, which is the only thing he knows about himself that makes him feel like a worthwhile person.
-Pg. 247
Connell already knows about the way Marianne is abused (mentally and physically) by her family at this point in the novel, but I’d say this is the moment where he fully understands the extent to which that abuse has shaped her mindset. People are just so cruel to her and Marianne accepts it. It’s in this chapter where Connell decides to try and put an end to it for good by convincing Marianne that she’s worthy of love and respect. We know that Connell suffers from anxiety and hates confrontation, but he’s able to find the courage to push through this and defend Marianne from Alan. It’s touching because we know how difficult this is for him to do, but he’s doing it anyway because he feels like there’s no other way to stop the cycle Marianne is trapped in.
February 2015
All these years they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions.
-Pg. 265
For the last chapter in the novel, I chose this short but evocative quote likening Marianne and Connell to two plants sharing the same plot of soil. It shows how they can’t predict or control what will happen to them, but that their relationship is such a core part of their respective identities that they know, one way or another, that they will be together in some fashion. The quote ties in nicely with the novel’s open ending, in which we learn that the real theme of the book is how certain people can affect the course of your life and your sense of self. We don’t get concrete assurance that they will stay together as a couple, because in real life—however strongly we might feel about someone—there’s no such assurance. You just have to keep going and find out. But we can take some comfort in the way this quote illustrates their mutual understanding that they can’t leave each other alone. Like the plants in the metaphor, they will find themselves taking “certain unlikely positions”, but they know that their unique dynamic will always be there to help them navigate life’s uncertainties.
TumbleweedWrites 
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