Quotes from Louise Doughty

suicide kills many more than the individual involved – that's why people only do it if their pain is so terrible it blinds them to the pain they are inflicting on the people they love.

Three decades of being the most respectable science professional or suburban mother count for nothing set against one fuck in a doorway.

febrile even, but happier than I have been in weeks.

interesting things to say. I had just read the line, 'It can

Love built on pain-the kind that lasts: whatever you love can be taken away from us at any moment but the loss of what we love belongs to us forever.

You should remind yourself that what you love is mortal, that what you love is not your own. It is granted to you the present while, and not irrevocably, nor for ever, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes in the appointed season and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool.

We discovered that safety and security are commodities you can sell in return for excitement but you can never buy them back.

Self-awareness: it is one of the chief bonuses of advancing age. It is our consolation prize.

The dead don't bother haunting graveyards- they are the last place on earth they need to haunt. The living do that job for them with their messy combination of grief, desire, imagination. There is nothing in this cemetery. It's just an empty field.

How many times in a life does a person get to feel an instant attraction for someone one has just met, the eyes locking, the sudden and overwhelming conviction that this is someone he or she is meant to know?

Sometimes the past seemed like enough, in comparison with the disappointments of the present.

The first day without you is painful in a way that is almost exquisite. I imagine quitting smokers must feel like this, or crash-dieters - the early determination, where the loss of what you have given up is replaced with the adrenaline of denial.

We are taught we can redeem them, she said to me once. We are taught it as soon as we can read. We can turn the beast into a prince, if only we love him enough.

It's a deal we all make, I remember thinking. What kind of life will I live with this person? All relationships are a balancing act, after all, each individual perched on either side of a seesaw. Your husband snores. Your wife leaves wet towels on the floor. But he brings you tea every morning. She's a terrific cook. All unions, all associations, every partnership- they all have their benefits and their drawbacks, their subscription fees.

The Water gets hot very gradually, and as far as the frog is concerned, there is no one point where it gets dramatically different or bad enough to jump out.

He is proud that his job includes an element of protecting the British public from explosive devices, even though the British public probably thinks he's the one most likely to be planting them.

Quando decidi di non dire qualcosa devi continuare a non dirlo. Basta poco, penso. Basta poco per trasformare la tua vita in una menzogna.

There is the mundane, then there is the unthinkable – between the two, a chasm into which our imaginations tumble.

There's a certain sort of a man whose every charm lies in his predictability.

Everything is disproportionate in the middle of the night.

Before my daughter was lost to me, I might have attributed his apparent stillness and control to a lack of feeling, but now I know, to my cost, that appearing unfeeling is the price we sometimes pay for being able to speak at all.

Love built on pain-the kind that lasts: whatever you love can be taken away from us at any moment but the loss of what we love belongs to us forever." ? Louise Doughty, Whatever You Love

She talks about men in the same amiable, unsurprised way that people talk about the weather - men are a kind of constant. a background note. They are useful objects for meaningless chatter when there is nothing else more important to talk about.

And here's the thing- when we have someone to say that- we feel annoyed with them. We grumble back. We have no idea how much we would miss having someone who has a bit of a go at us if they weren't there- irritation is a form of love and love the seedbed in which it flourishes. If we didn't care, we wouldn't be irritated.