The Humans

by Matt Haig

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. That was . . . someone.”

Where we are from we have solved the problem of fear because we have solved the problem of

death. We will not die. Which means we can’t just let the universe do what it wants to do, because we will be inside it for eternity.

I had returned home with Newton while Gulliver had carried on walking. I had no idea where he was going, but it was pretty clear to me, from his lack of direction,

And hope was often irrational. It made no sense. If it had made sense, it would have been called, well,

sense. The other thing about hope was that it took effort, and I had never been used to effort. At home, nothing had been an effort. That was the whole point of home, the comfort of a perfectly effortless existence. Yet there I was. Hoping. Not that I was standing there, passively, just wishing him better from a distance. Of course not. I placed my left hand—my gift hand—to his heart, and I began to work.

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.

He was a good dog. And I loved him.

have to admit that humans waste a lot of their time—almost all of it—with hypothetical stuff.

Love is what the humans are all about but they don’t understand it. If they understood it, then it would disappear.

They were not the only life-form in the universe to have suicide,

You have more knowledge about the universe than anyone else on your own planet.” I pointed at the window. “You’ve seen what’s out there. And also, I should say, you’ve shown yourself to be really strong.”