If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.

—Gail Honeyman in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

emotions fear hiding fine

About Gail Honeyman

Portrait of Gail Honeyman

Gail Honeyman (born 1972) is a Scottish writer whose debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award.

More quotations from Gail Honeyman

Although it's good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it's also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.

—Gail Honeyman in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.

—Gail Honeyman in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

More quotations tagged with “hiding”

God is hiding in the world and our task is to let the divine emerge from our deeds.

—Abraham Joshua Heschel

God hiding deeds works

I'm not trying to hide my past. I've learned a lot from it. It's made me who I am today, and I'm proud of who I've become.

—Amber Lynn Natusch in Undertow

learning past pride growth hiding

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

—Raymond Chandler

Penetrate deeply into the secret existence of anyone about you, even of the man or woman whom you count happiest, and you will come upon things they spend all their efforts to hide. Fair as the exterior may be, if you go in, you will find bare places, heaps of rubbish that can never be taken away, cold hearths, desolate altars, and windows veiled with cobwebs.

happiness depth secret hiding

History

11 Jan 2019 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.