Quotes from Matt Haig

He believed that the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became.

She was antimatter, with added self-pity.

The paradox of modern life is this: we have never been more connected and we have never been more alone.

But, as time grew on, I knew something I hadn't known earlier. I knew that down wasn't the only direction. If you hung in there, if you stuck it out, then things got better. They get better and then they get worse and then they get better.

She remembered studying Aristotle as a first-year Philosophy student. And being a bit depressed by his idea that excellence was never an accident. That excellent outcomes were the result of 'the wise choice of many alternatives'.

But sometimes it seems there is no explanation as to why the things are happening – why all the buses are coming along at once – why life's moments of luck and pain arrive in clusters. All we can do is observe the pattern, the rhythm, and then live it.

But as things stood, there weren't even two fun days. They only had Saturdays, because Mondays were a little bit too close to Sundays for Sunday's liking, as if Monday were a collapsed star in the week's solar system, with an excessive gravitational pull.

I could hardly breathe, watching her, and didn't even notice it was beginning to rain. I was just mesmerized by her. All eleven trillion cells of her.

Noise is life. Silence is death. But now, just for this moment, silence doesn't seem so bad. It seems like a desired ending, a destination, a place where noise wants to reach.

When you have worries about things you don't know about, like the future, it's a very good idea to remind yourself of things you do know.

Humans, as a rule, don't like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead.

That is how science works, not through blind faith, but continual doubt.

he believed that the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became. That's why everyone hates each other nowadays, he reckoned. Because they are overloaded with non-friend friends.

You are no less or more of a man or a woman or a human for having depression than you would be for having cancer or cardiovascular disease or a car accident. So what should we do? Talk. Listen. Encourage talking. Encourage listening. Keep adding to the conversation. Stay on the lookout for those wanting to join in the conversation.

She understands enough of what is going on. She understands that he wants to save her, more than anything in the world. She understands what he understands, that if only he could save her, he could save himself. She understands also that she loves him, and as she stays inside his helpless stare, she knows that fate is something she has to steer herself.

Loneliness isn't an absence of company. Loneliness is felt when we are lost. But we can be lost right in the middle of a crowd. There is nothing lonelier than being with people who aren't on your wavelength. The cure for loneliness isn't more people. The cure for loneliness is understanding who we are.

Peace was made of porcelain, as it always was.

If pills work for you it doesn't really matter if this is to do with serotonin or another process or anything else.- keep taking them. Hell, if licking wallpaper does it for you, do that. I am not anti pill. I am pro anything that works and I know pill do work for a lot of people.

If your life isn't working You have to ask why.

A wave can kill you. Or you can ride it. It's sometimes more dangerous to shy away. You can't live your life in fear. You have to be prepared to get on your board and stand on your feet. If you are in the barrel of a wave you have to ignore the fear. You have to be in that moment. You have to carve on through. You get scared, and the next thing you know you are off your board and smashing your head on a rock. I'm never going to live in fear.

It seems impossible to live without hurting people.

Change doesn't just happen by focusing on the place you want to escape. It happens by focusing on where you want to reach.

I am petrified of where my mind can go, because I know where it has already been.

You are right to think of these lives like a piano where you're playing tunes that aren't really you. You are forgetting who you are. In becoming everyone, you are becoming no one. You are forgetting your root life. You are forgetting what worked for you and what didn't. You are forgetting your regrets.