Conversations with Friends

by Sally Rooney

In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.

Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought.

It’s weird knowing someone just casually, he said, and then later finding out they’re observing things all the time. It’s like, God, what has this person noticed about me?

I couldn’t stop the tears so I just laughed self-effacingly instead, to show that I wasn’t invested in the crying.

Once I watched an entire episode of Arrested Development before he came back in the room, it was the one where they burn down the banana stand.

Like, what’s this beautiful corpse doing in bed with you, Nick? It was just a joke, he would never really call me beautiful. But I liked the joke anyway.

You can love more than one person,

That was it. It was over then. It was all going to be okay.

I liked to feel that he was my collaborator.

Bobbi: i don’t think “unemotional” is a quality someone can have

You’re twenty-one, said Melissa. You should be disastrously unhappy.

I focused on my breathing,

She pronounced Liese’s name without any particular love or hatred, just a girl she had known, and for months afterward, maybe forever afterward, I was afraid that someday she would say my name that way too.

Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they? That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through.

You underestimate your own power so you don’t have to blame yourself for treating other people badly.