Books I Like: The Tennis Party

My favorite quotes from The Tennis Party...


Selling’s all about judging the client, he thought. There’s a way into anyone’s pocket.

‘It hasn’t been a bad couple of years. I’ve been keeping my end up somehow. Just going with the flow. You know how it is.’

As a mother, perhaps her function was simply to make sure her children’s lives were as ordered as her own had been.

You shouldn’t just get things because they’re important to you.

The first rule of winning is to believe you’re capable of winning.

The second rule’, said Don, ‘is to make others believe you’re capable of winning.

Hadn’t she once read somewhere that babies learnt to smile as a defence mechanism? That was all her smile was tonight – a defence, to stop people looking too closely, or saying ‘Cheer up’, in that dreadfully hearty way.

Not to well-meaning people who didn’t understand.

When did you ever make a big decision and not have doubts somewhere along the line?