The Midnight Library

by Matt Haig

‘Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’

‘I don’t think your problem was stage fright. Or wedding fright. I think your problem was life fright.’

Happy moments can turn into pain, given time.

Now, you have to decide how you want to live.’

‘Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations.

you had done just one thing differently, you would have a different life story.

So, do you want to live a life you could be living? Do you want to do something differently? Is there anything you wish to change?

‘Doing one thing differently is often the same as doing everything differently. Actions can’t be reversed within a lifetime, however much we try

regret the time I spent on social media.’

she wondered if her parents had ever been in love or if they had got married because marriage was something you did at the appropriate time with the nearest available person.

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.

She stepped outside, wondering whether a life could really be judged from just a few minutes after midnight on a Tuesday. Or maybe that was all you needed.

‘How do I know? I only know today. I know a lot about today. But I don’t know what happens tomorrow.’

The Only Way to Learn Is to Live

‘So, you see? Sometimes regrets aren’t based on fact at all. Sometimes regrets are just . . .’ She searched for the appropriate term and found it. ‘A load of bullshit.’

sometimes the only way to learn is to live.’

‘Well, that you can choose choices but not outcomes. But I stand by what I said. It was a good choice. It just wasn’t a desired outcome.’

‘The only way to learn is to live.’

‘Never underestimate the big importance of small things,’

‘You see, doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently. Actions can’t be reversed within a lifetime, however much we try .

‘The only way to learn is to live.’

what we consider to be the most successful route for us to take, actually isn’t. Because too often our view of success is about some external bullshit idea of achievement – an Olympic medal, the ideal husband, a good salary.

And we have all these metrics that we try and reach. When really success isn’t something you measure, and life isn’t a race you can win.

The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything. But amid pure nature (or the ‘tonic of wildness’ as Thoreau called it) solitude took on a different character.

the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became.

In the face of death, life seemed more attractive,

wasn’t the shock of having been close to death. It was the shock of realising she actually wanted to live.

To be part of nature was to be part of the will to live.

Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty.

Maybe it wasn’t the lack of achievements that had made her and her brother’s parents unhappy, maybe it was the expectation to achieve in the first place.

You could be you in any version of the world, however unlikely that world would be. You are only limited by your imagination.

seems that you have spent all your life saying things that you aren’t really thinking. This is one of your barriers.’

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.’

That it is a by-product of living a certain way, rather than simply living.

am saying that the thing that looks the most ordinary might end up being the thing that leads you to victory. You have to keep going. Like that day in the river. Do you remember?’

No player should give up if there were pieces still left on the board.

‘Never underestimate the big importance of small things.’

Never trust someone who is willingly rude to low-paid service staff

It was as though she had reached some state of acceptance about life – that if there was a bad experience, there wouldn’t only be bad experiences.

Fear was when you wandered into a cellar and worried that the door would close shut. Despair was when the door closed and locked behind you.

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

In becoming everyone, you are becoming no one.

‘We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it. “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”’

She realised that you could be as honest as possible in life, but people only see the truth if it is close enough to their reality.

As Thoreau wrote, ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.’

this was all meaningless without love.

Never underestimate the big importance of small things,

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Now go on, live, while you still have the chance.’

What sometimes feels like a trap is actually just a trick of the mind.