Still Me (Me Before You #3)

by Jojo Moyes

“You gotta have your places for community.” Ashok raised a hand emphatically, slicing the air. “You gotta have places where people can meet and talk and exchange ideas and it not just be about money, you know? Books are what teach you about life. Books teach you empathy. But you can’t buy books if you barely got enough to make rent. So that library is a vital resource! You shut a library, Louisa, you don’t just shut down a building, you shut down hope.”

I became a shadow, so much so that sometimes I felt almost evanescent—useful only in relation to someone else.

I realized with mild disappointment that charity could mean something quite different here: that it was not enough to give, you had to be seen to be giving.

The key was making sure that anyone you allowed to walk beside you didn’t get to decide which you were, and pin you down like a butterfly in a case. The key was to know that you could always somehow find a way to reinvent yourself again.