The Midnight Library

by Matt Haig

The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything.

indeed

The life of a human, according to the Scottish philosopher David Hume, was of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

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.’

I mean, it would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunise you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness for ever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.’

And if she was to find a life truly worth living, she realised she would have to cast a wider net.