The Bookshop on the Corner

by Jenny Colgan

Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.

The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things.

Because life is like that, isn’t it? If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again. And some people don’t. Some people go through life not really deciding to do much, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also a decision. You’ll get somewhere whether you put any effort into it or not. But doing something new is so hard. And a few things can help.

“Just do something. You might make a mistake, then you can fix it. But if you do nothing, you can’t fix anything. And your life might turn out to be full of regrets.”

“You are young. You are healthy. You have van. Many people from my country would think you were very lucky.”

“I do not like it,” he said. “Is expensive to me and too busy and too fast. I like it where is quiet and free and you can think and breathe proper air, like home.

“You’re allowed to do that?” “Completely and absolutely not,” he said.

Great anwer

And stop whistling ‘Over the Sea to Skye.’”

Hahahahahahaha

and more of the world around it, trying to swallow it whole, concreting over the entire land into a dark, grimy urban sprawl, with a coffee shop in every street and everyone shut away in highly priced boxy little flats, attached to their WiFi, living through a screen even as another nine skyscrapers were thrown up right next door, blocking out more of the light and the clouds and the air and the view and nobody seeming to care, everyone thinking of it as progress.

she always had a pen; she bought stationery the way other women bought lipsticks—and

Be silent, hide away and let your thoughts and longings rise and set in the deep places of your heart. Let dreams move silently as stars, in wonder more than you can tell. Let them fulfill you—and be still.

“Poetry is good for people who are in strange lands,” said Marek.

Lennox disappeared back inside and reappeared with a second cup of hot, sweet black coffee that he passed to her wordlessly.

This is love

“Maybe your idiots can come and stick their books on that.”