Thirteen Storeys

He considered himself a good man, and always did his best to avoid passing judgement on others, but deep down he had an unshakeable conviction that all rich people were deeply, deeply stupid.

This world was designed to generate winners and losers, and it showed a lack of character to wish yourselves a winner without accepting what it does to those who lose.

To Violet, the greatest danger of eye contact was that people thought you were interested in their opinions.

Gonna be honest. A rich man suffering consequences sounds a lot less plausible to me than ghosts.

She was fine. There was no reason for her not to be, so she was fine.

Nothing worth doing should be easy, she had always felt, and that included living.

Though her mother's dire predictions of robbery, murder or kidnapping had never come true (yet another way Violet had disappointed her), she had been right about how harsh and ugly London was. If you couldn't find the quiet joy in that ugliness, it might be a bit much for some people.

The ghosts were never the problem

At a certain point, beyond all extremity, the only freedom you have left is the freedom to say ‘No’ and let them do as they will

His origins were similar to any other billionaire: he was provided with a small fortune by his father’s family

There was something about the long stretch of train ride rattling out towards the suburbs and countryside that he found strangely oppressive. The same landmarks passing him by every day, again and again, marking the passage of time between a deeply unfulfilling job and a house his parents were clearly sick of sharing with him. A huge pendulum, back and forth, each swing another tally on a wasted life he’d never get back.

You weren't doing a very good job being you. So I'm helping.

The beautiful woman in blood-stained jewels looked away, searching for a seat. She should hate her for the trophies she wore of slavery and death, but somewhere beneath her new callouses, she found that she couldn’t. Something else, deeper than the weariness and dirt, grew brighter at the sight, cutting through her anger.

Have you ever had that feeling, I think in French it’s jamais vu, ‘never seen’, like deja vu is ‘already seen’? It’s when you look at something so familiar, your mother’s face or a train station you travel from every day, and it looks … completely different. Alien. Everything you remember being there is there, but it all seems slightly off, like it’s been rearranged. That’s because your eyes have accidentally settled on different focal points from the ones they’re used to, and so everything else is subtly changed to reflect that. It all seems different. You can’t trust what your eyes tell you about spaces. Half of it’s illusion and the other half assumption.

The ghosts were never the problem.

People are always so surprised at what they are capable of once they’ve taken a step they deem unforgivable.

But anything could be beautiful. Beauty was cheap. Beauty was obvious.

the greatest danger of eye contact was that people thought you were interested in their opinions.