Quotes from Matt Haig

Sometimes things are a change for the better and the worse at the same time, like the internet.

Catholic, I discovered, meant a type of Christianity for humans who like gold leaf, Latin, and guilt.

But we kind of know that turning life into a desperate race for more stuff is only going to shorten it. Not in years, not in terms of actual time, but in terms of how time feels.

Nora quería vivir en un mundo en el que no existiera la crueldad, pero en los únicos mundos que tenía a su disposición había seres humanos

And then he - Tchaikovsky - turned towards the little lectern that was on the stage, picked up his baton and held it in the air. He paused a moment. It was like watching an old wizard with a wand, summoning the energy needed to cast a spell... Time slowed inside that moment. Then the music began.

A kind of timidity can set in with familiarity. A fear of change. We can end up stuck in jobs we don't like, in unhealthy relationships, with similar unhelpful attitudes. We call this the "comfort zone" but often it is the opposite. A discomfort zone, a stagnation zone, an unfulfilled zone

This was jazz music. It was full of the complexity and contradictions that I would soon learn made humans human.

Wow. Really? You have yourself in quite high esteem there, Nora.' 'Shouldn't I? I mean, shouldn't everyone? What's wrong with self-esteem?

That change can take different forms. It can mean using technology to help our minds, by getting an app that limits our social media use, or getting a dimmer switch, or walking more, or being more considerate to people online, or choosing a car less likely to contaminate the air. Being kind to ourselves and being kind to the planet is, ultimately, the same thing. 'Progress

From here the waves sound like breaths. Inhale. Exhale.

A 'band' was 'onstage' playing 'music'.

The world is what we recognize in our own will. Humans are ruled by their basic desires and lead to suffering and pain, because our desires make us crave things from the world but the world is nothing but representation. Because those same cravings shape what we see. We end up feeding from ourselves, until we go mad.

It makes sense that shopping centers aren't easy places to be in. A shopping center is a deliberately stimulating environment, designed not to calm or comfort, but merely to get us to spend money. And as anxiety is often a trigger for consumption, feeling calm and satisfied would probably work against the shopping center's best interests. Calmness and satisfaction—in the agenda of the shopping center—are destinations we reach by purchasing. Not places already there.

Experience surrounds innocence and innocence can never be regained once lost.

Life is pain," he said, sadly. "But it's also magic, Papa.

He – or She – or whichever pronoun God is –

Maybe happiness is not about what we can get. Maybe happiness is about what we already have. Maybe happiness is about what we can give. Maybe happiness is not a butterfly we can catch with a net. Maybe there is no certain way to be happy. Maybe there are only maybes. If (as Emily Dickinson said) "Forever—is composed of Nows—," maybe the nows are made of maybes. Maybe the point of life is to give up certainty and to embrace life's beautiful uncertainty.

Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us. —J. G. BALLARD

Distraction is an attempt to escape that rarely works. You don't put out a fire by ignoring the fire. You have to acknowledge the fire. You can't compulsively swallow or tweet or drink your way out of pain. There comes a point at which you have to face it. To face yourself. In a world of a million distractions you are still left with only one mind.

Tolstoy wrote, back in 1894, in The Kingdom of God Is Within You: The more men are freed from privation; the more telegraphs, telephones, books, papers, and journals there are; the more means there will be of diffusing inconsistent lies and hypocrisies, and the more disunited and consequently miserable will men become, which indeed is what we see actually taking place.

Metsä Haluan, että Hidastat Haluan, että Kaikki hidastuu; Haluan tehdä hetkestä Metsän Ja elää siinä metsässä Ikuisesti Ennen kuin menet.

That is what the taste of blood does. It takes away the gap between thought and action.To think is to do. There is no unlived life inside you as the air speeds past your body, as you look down at the dreary villages and market towns...

You are the observer of your mind, not its victim

If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better.