More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I think you should know that I make up a lot of stuff in my head and then get sad about it.
“It’s a well-established fact that people tease people they fancy.
Sometimes I hate people. This is probably very bad for my mental health.
but personally, thinking or talking too much about ‘boy issues’ makes me want to shoot myself in the face.
Sometimes I like to fill my days with little things that other people don’t care about. It makes me feel like I’m doing something important, mainly because no one else is doing it.
My brother, Charles Spring, is fifteen years old and a Year 11 at Truham Grammar. In my opinion, he is the nicest person in the history of the universe and I know that ‘nice’ is kind of a meaningless word, but that’s what makes it so powerful. It’s very hard to simply be a ‘nice’ person because there are a lot of things that can get in the way.
Nicholas Nelson, a Year 12 like me, looks exactly like the kind of scary lads you’d see crammed at the back of the school bus, ready to throw sandwiches at you. But in reality, Nick is actually the human embodiment of a golden retriever puppy, as well as being Truham’s rugby captain and a genuinely lovely person.
find one song that I really love and then I listen to it about twenty billion times until I hate it and have ruined it for myself.
“On the contrary, you’d probably be more likely to forget the most important things of all.”
“You like to act as if you care about nothing and if you carry on like that then you’re going to drown in the abyss you have imagined for yourself.”
“There’s a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is their default setting. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner.”
I fall asleep with the glare of my blog home page warming my face and the hum of my laptop soothing my mind like crickets at a campsite.
and I am coming extremely close to hurling myself from a window and it’s only 10.45am.
One day I’m going to forget how to wake up.
“It’s important to make lots of discoveries every day.” He stands back up. “That’s what makes one day different from the next.”
Smoking is so pointless. The only reason I can think of for smoking is if you want to die.
“I think it’s better to just read and not study books.”
“The Sun Also Rises.” “And who, might I ask, wrote that?” I sigh again. “Ernest Hemingway.” He starts shaking his head. “You hate literature. You hate it. You can’t even bring yourself to read Pride and Prejudice.”
every minute you spend thinking about what you’re not doing, that’s another minute forgetting about how to be around other people.”
If you can’t accept things you don’t understand, then you’ll spend your life questioning everything. Then you’ll have to live out your life in your own head.”
“Oi – Michael Holden – wanker!” and Michael spins on the spot and produces a strong double thumbs-up in their direction.
Teenagers,” he says, as if the mere state of being a teenager explains every single thing about me.
“Happiness,” he says, “is the price of profound thought.”
but also this is the first time in my life that I have ever felt a positive emotion towards Year 7.
Friends are important. People who are alone are usually the antagonists”
You can’t always rely just on yourself, even though it can seem like an easier way to live.”
I used to love bubbles, even if I could never let go of the fact that they’re always empty inside.
if I were to die, I would rather be a ghost than go to heaven.
Nobody is honest, nobody is real. You can’t trust anyone or anything. Emotions are humanity’s fatal disease. And we’re all dying.
Just because someone smiles doesn’t mean that they’re happy.
I really would die if I don’t … if I don’t hold him.
“I think I’ve loved you since I met you,” he says as we draw apart. “I just mistook it for curiosity.”
“But one day it’ll end. It always ends.”
All I know is that I’m here. And I’m alive. And I’m not alone.