Half a World Away

by Mike Gayle

I wanted him growing up knowing that there’s a right way and a wrong way, and the wrong way is sitting on your backside all day long thinking the world owes you a living.

To me, the most important thing in the world is that he has pride in himself.

little frustrates the human brain so much as an inability to immediately pigeonhole complete strangers.

I believe perfectly illustrates a long-held theory of mine that when it comes to the employment of specious, insulting and downright racist stereotypes, no social class or indeed race has a monopoly. Everybody, whether rich or poor, black or white, educated or uneducated, is as guilty of this behaviour as everyone else.

Right now it just looks a bit weird, like a park where nobody’s allowed to play, no kids, no bikes, no ball games, just a collection of sad-looking people standing in the cold, staring at slabs of granite poking out of the ground.

the world’s not going to fall apart even if we don’t come up with any solutions.

I think a good cry is like a safety valve: it releases the pressure before it builds up.

the past rarely stays buried for long. I’ve always found that things have a habit of coming to the fore.

“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”’

In the dark everything seems so much worse than it really is; even the smallest thing seems like a mountain you’ve got to climb.

what use is that when the morning’s so far away?

In the middle of the night, waiting for daylight feels like forever, a forever where you’re stuck going over every bad thought in your head with a fine-tooth comb.

Life’s too short to settle for second best. Sometimes you just have to make your own happiness.

Had we ever missed bumping into one another by a matter of hours, or minutes or even seconds? It all seems too fantastic to contemplate.

Even though I’ve tried my best not to drop my aitches, it’s not as if anyone would mistake me for being posh. And as for being clever, I haven’t even got a single GCSE to my name, let alone a degree or anything fancy like that.

Sometimes I feel like he’s got this whole secret world going on inside his head.

when I look at him all I see are fragments. It’s as though he’ll reveal parts of himself, but never the whole story.’

‘You might think you’re always going to be like this, that people can’t change, but that’s not true. We can all change if we really want to, you’ve just got to have the right motivation.

Because that’s the thing about family, when it’s done right, there’s nothing in the world that you wouldn’t do for them, no obstacle you wouldn’t climb, no sacrifice you wouldn’t make, just to see them be okay.’

Young people who have been in care are six times more likely to enter the criminal justice system, more likely to experience homelessness, develop drug and alcohol dependencies, and have children before the age of eighteen.

‘Listen, son, the world is full of people like Callum West trying to wind you up for a laugh.’ Her voice is lower now, softer. ‘It’s the only power they’ve got. But if you show them you can’t be wound up, they’ll soon realise you’re the one with the power, not them.’

We all make a mess of things from time to time – I’m living proof of that – but it’s what you do to clean it up that counts.’

The sunlight streaming in through the window makes everything glow a lovely colour,

All these people, all these lives, crossing over each other in this one room, and now I’m one of them.

forced her to finally accept there are things that for the moment she can’t do, no matter how much she might want to.

she never once questions the likelihood of being able to achieve her goals.

it is impossible for me not to wonder what my dreams and ambitions would’ve been had I not been granted the privileged education I’d received.

I’m just as good as regular Iron Man, but unlike him I like to clear up after myself.’

You just have to live life well, and that’s exactly what I try to do every day.

But they’re connected through things much more important than what school you went to, or what your mum and dad do for a living, and I don’t doubt for a moment that it’ll be enough to get them both through whatever this life throws at them.

Kerry is more than her illness, more than just a woman lying in a hospital bed. More even than just a sister or a mother, she is a confidante, a mentor and a friend.

I couldn’t believe that the line between life and death was so flimsy, and all that separated the two was the space of a single breath.

you have to make the best decision you can at the time with the information you’ve got,

It’s these small moments that make life worth living. The moments you take for granted. The ones you think will always be in plentiful supply. But if this past year has shown me anything, it’s the need to cherish each and every moment, whether good or bad, whether joyful or painful, as the precious fleeting gifts that they are.

for now it’s enough he knows that from the moment he was conceived, he had been loved and wanted with a passion and a fervour that knew no bounds. A love that not even death could destroy.

how in a world full of darkness you were always the bright shining light that kept me going.