The Midnight Library

by Matt Haig

A person was like a city. You couldn’t let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. There may be bits you don’t like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile.

‘Want,’ she told her, in a measured tone, ‘is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely. Maybe you have a lack problem rather than a want problem. Maybe there is a life that you really want to live.’

‘Because, Nora, sometimes the only way to learn is to live.’

‘Never underestimate the big importance of small things,’ Mrs Elm said. ‘You must always remember that.’

‘But you will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life,’ he said, wisely.

Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.’

‘Compassion is the basis of morality,’

The sky grows dark The black over blue Yet the stars still dare To shine for you

‘Life begins,’ Sartre once wrote, ‘on the other side of despair.’

‘You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.’