Normal People

by Sally Rooney

You’re a nice person and everyone likes you.

‘the pleasure of being touched by great art’.

It’s time you’ll never get back, Marianne adds. I mean, the time is real. The money is also real. Well, but the time is more real. Time consists of physics, money is just a social construct.

If people appeared to behave pointlessly in grief, it was only because human life was pointless, and this was the truth that grief revealed.

It’s funny the decisions you make because you like someone, he says, and then your whole life is different. I think we’re at that weird age where life can change a lot from small decisions.

No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not. She knows he loves her, she doesn’t wonder about that anymore.