Quotes from Matt Haig

I regret feeling so much guilt.

She had to try harder. She had to want the life she always thought she didn't. Because just as this library was a part of her, so too were all the other lives. She might not have felt everything she had felt in those lives, but she had the capability.

I have only been in love once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It's a sweet idea, but the reality is terror itself. To be faced with all those lonely years after. To exist when the point of you has gone.

But it is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy. We can't tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.

Listen,' she said, as she realised she wasn't going to be able to escape the bedroom any time soon. '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.

She said that, precisely. Try on. As if this was a clothes shop and Nora could choose a life as easily as a T-shirt.

Der Turm ist meine Lieblingsfigur", sagte sie jetzt. "Man denkt, man müsse nicht auf ihn achten. Weil er sich immer unkompliziert geradeaus bewegt. Dame, Springer und Läufer behält man im Auge, weil sie sich heimlich anschleichen. Aber gerade der Turm wird einem oft zum Verhängnis. Das Umkomplizierte ist nie ganz das, was es zu sein scheint." - S. 104

Santa Barbara is pleasant. It's heaven, but with a bit more traffic.

Negative capability…quoting Keats: "Discard your memory," he implored. "Discard the future tense of your desire; forget…both what you knew and what you want, to leave space for a new idea.

Being aware that everything that could possibly happen happened to her somewhere, in some life, kind of absolved her a little from decisions.

Onderschat nooit het belang van kleine dingen.

While choice is infinite, our lives have time spans. We can't live every life. We can't watch every film or read every book or visit every single place on this sweet earth. Rather than being blocked by it, we need to edit the choice in front of us. We need to find out what is good for us, and leave the rest.

I still keep that magic alive by trying to make people happy. By seeing the goodness in people. And letting that goodness shine back.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

And she didn't want to live any other life than the one that was hers.

what is the point of living when you have no one to live for?

We can look at the world through more than one lens. If we look at people through the lens of emotion, at the feelings that drive opinions, rather than the opinions themselves, it's easy to see the things we share. The hopes, the fears, the loves, the insecurities, the longings, the doubts, the dreams. Other people can be wrong, and we can be wrong, and that is another thing we have in common. The capacity for fucking up. And for forgiving.

She just needed potential. And she was nothing if not potential. She wondered why she had never seen it before.

But it is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.

The rook is my favorite piece. It's the one that you think you don't have to watch out for. It is straightforward. You keep your eye on the queen and the knights, and the bishop because they are the sneaky ones. But it's the rook that often gets you. The straightforward is never quite what it seems.

I had been to sea before, but being at sea no longer felt like being at sea. The progress of humanity seemed to be measured in the distance we placed between ourselves and nature. We could now be in the middle of the Atlantic, on a steam ship such as the Etruria, and feel as if we were sitting in a restaurant in Mayfair.

didn't save you. You were just lucky. But I really think you should ignore feelings like that. That was a moment in your life. You have a lot more days to live. About twenty-four thousand more days to live, probably. That's a lot of moments. You could do many great things in that time. You could read a lot of poetry.

Don't attach yourself to people, and try to feel as little as you possibly can for those you do meet. Because otherwise you will slowly lose your mind .

Onderschat nooit het grote belang van kleine dingen.