Conviction

Just when you think something can’t get any worse someone who dislikes you comes to watch.

Julia saw the awe on my face. She recognised it. She pouted and graced me with a small, wry smile, then dropped her eyes and turned away as if to say, yes, here I am. I am a peerless pearl who has fallen from her setting. I have rolled into the dust under a couch and been forgotten. But, if you can see past the dust and the gloom, you will see that I am still a pearl.

There is a warmth and a comfort in hearing about people in worse situations than your own. Pity is a hollow virtue. I like it. It’s a form of self-aggrandisement really, bigging yourself up by defining someone as below you. True-crime podcasts are usually great for that but sometimes you have to look really hard to find anyone down there.

The real meaning of stories depends on where they’re told, when and to whom.

Self-pity makes tyrants, it’s the defining characteristic of brutal regimes,

The eternal companions of all clever women are mistrust and scorn.

I said that one of the stories in the Arabian Nights is specifically about the urge to tell a story. It’s primal, the need to tell. It’s not about the listener but the storyteller. In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.

Grief is a scar. The tissue is tough and when it’s cut again, it heals poorly.

I often said the wrong thing–wake up, shut up, grow up. These are the wrong things to say when people are sad about some minor cruelty or sentimental incident.

If you've ever had to run you know that stuff is just stuff. Even rich people can only stand in one room at a time.

I loved getting up before everyone else, when the house was still and I could read or listen to a podcast alone in a frozen world. I knew where everyone was. I knew they were safe. I could relax.

But that's not true because the world is full of us. One in five. We are as perennial as love. We go about our business, raising kids, running countries, starting wars and solving crimes. We don't tell our stories because, if we've survived, that can only mean that what happened wasn't so very bad after all. It never means that we are fucking amazing. I am fucking amazing. When I was nineteen I ran so fast I left a branding behind. And I have stories to tell that are more than titillating details or pleas for your pity. This is just one of them.

That got a big laugh. For the rest of the journey, whenever there was a pause or the mood dipped, someone would repeat the punchline and everyone would laugh. This went on until the garrotting in the toilet.

These were stories to entertain, told for the shape of them, for the sake of them, for the love of a tale. It was all about the stories and the shapes of the stories. Round ones, spirals, perfect arcs, a ninety-degree take-off with a four-bump landing, and one of his, I remember vividly, was an absurdist finger trap.

It’s primal, the need to tell. It’s not about the listener but the storyteller. In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.

When a narrative chimes with pre-existing beliefs, it can seem so self-evidently true that all conflicting evidence is discarded.

One [belief] is that violence is caused by a deficit of morality and justice. On the contrary, violence is often caused by a surfeit of morality and justice, at least as they are conceived in the minds of the perpetrators. Steven Pinker

Lovely thing about Adam, and why I loved him, was that he was kind to me when it mattered and he had seen a lot too. It’s hard to be among vanilla bastards all the time. Normal people can get genuinely upset about a bad haircut, cross words, sick cats. It’s hard not to roll your eyes and say the wrong thing.

I told him that I read to self-medicate. That I find the world a bit much sometimes.

Beautiful women like Julia have a hard hand to play, so much is projected on to them, they get bulldozed all the time.

Even rich people can only stand in one room at a time.

I hadn’t inherited my fate. I didn’t need to pass it on to my girls. None of it was inevitable.

This is who I was for my children. I told them to go. I told them to leave me. I said their dad had gone a wee bit mad but he had decided to do this and there was no going back. Jess shrank in her chair. I squeezed her hand. Come on. It'll be find. Don't be scared. It's just change. We're strong women, aren't we? I looked at them. They looked blankly back. They weren't women. They were tiny little girls. But I made them say that we were strong women. And I told them that I didn't want this. I didn't want to be away from them for a second but sometimes you have to fit into life, or waste a lot of time and energy wishin it would fit in with you.

but sometimes you have to fit into life, or waste a lot of time and energy wishing it would fit in with you.

The disposable girl should develop a drink problem or take drugs. She should become the victim of someone else, somewhere else. At best she becomes a campaigner against whatever she was a victim of. Nothing can happen to her that doesn't refer back to the attack. She has been branded. But that's not true because the world is full of us. One in five. We are as perennial as love. We go about our business, raising kids, running countries, starting wars and solving crimes. We don't tell our stories because, if we've survived, that can only mean that what happened wasn't so very bad after all. It never means that we are fucking amazing. I am fucking amazing. When I was nineteen I ran so fast I left a branding behind. And I have stories to tell that are more than titillating details or pleas for your pity. This is just one of them.

Oh God, Leon’s laugh. So dark and wild you could drown a bag of kittens in it.

I don’t understand why people monologue about what they don’t want to eat as if it’s interesting.

how close I came to suicide. Trina was right. It is a passing impulse, a signal that change is needed. If I had done it I wouldn’t be here, in a giant bed in Paris, having my sore face kissed by tiny lips. I was in the afterwards, it was glorious, and a lot of people didn’t make it here. That is all I’m saying about that.