The Man I Think I Know

by Mike Gayle

The thing about work is that it’s a habit. If you do it enough. it sort of sticks so that you feel wrong if you’re not doing something.

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Even thinking about working makes me feel queasy. This I know makes me sound a lot like I have no ambition. It presents me as almost having given up on life. It suggests that I’m content to just exist like some corpulent bluebottle basking in the sunshine on the windowsill of life.

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I keep quiet and she keeps quiet too, until we use up all the quiet in the room so that finally one of us has to say something.

It’s the best feeling in the world knowing there’s someone in your corner. That no matter what and no matter how badly you mess up, they will always be on your side.

Martha kisses me on the cheek too, only she does not wipe away her lipstick afterwards. When she is not looking, I touch where she put her lips. It feels sticky but in a nice way. Like she has left part of her kiss behind for me to find later tonight, when I am in bed and dropping off to sleep.

sometimes I struggle to get the thoughts out of my head because they are stuck behind one another like cars in a traffic jam.

I learned that if someone tells you to be on the safe side lots of times then after a while they do not need to say it. After a while you just say it to yourself in your head like, ‘I had better not do that, just to be on the safe side.’

it looks a little eccentric or at the very least as though her washing machine’s broken and this outfit is made up of the only clean clothes she could find.

all thoughts, no matter how altruistic, always end up being self-centred in some way if you give them long enough,

Something that is more important than showing off how much money you have made. He is helping people who cannot help themselves. And that is not just a good thing to do with your life. It is the very best thing.

‘If I’ve learned anything it’s that we’re all paler versions of our past selves. But the people we used to be are still in there somewhere.’

‘I have taught myself not to dream,’ I say. ‘Life is a lot easier that way.’

Things happen all the time that we cannot control. Sometimes they are bad and sometimes they are good. It is just the way life is.’

‘You leak stories about the other side to the media and that way your client seems less guilty.’

People who are down shouldn’t be on their own because it only makes things worse. People who are down should be with people who love them and care for them and want to cheer them up.

Details are important when a day is special to you. But the difficult thing is that quite often you do not know a day is special until long after it is over.

you always have a choice: give in or get up.