I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

Ever since I was a child, I have preferred to inhabit the fictional lives of others, hiding in stories that have happier endings than my own; we are what we read.

the present is always a superior time; looking down its nose at the past, turning away from the temptations of the future.

We exchange the currency of our dreams for a reality funded by acceptance as we get older.

Sometimes it only takes one person to believe in you, to change your life for ever. Sometimes it only takes one person not believing in you to destroy it. Humans are a highly sensitive species.

You can’t allow the past to steal your present, but if you siphon off just the right amount, it can help fuel your future.

I’ve always felt safe in bookshops. It’s as though the stories inside them can rescue me from myself and the rest of the world. A literary sanctuary filled with shelves of paper-shaped parachutes, which will save you when you fall.

Books can be mirrors too, offering a reflection of our worst selves for appraisal; lessons tucked between pages, just waiting to be learned.