The New House

by Tess Stimson

There’s about a thousand of you in this room. So that means roughly ten of you are psychopaths. But since the stat I just gave you rises to one in twenty-five when we’re talking about business leaders and CEOs, we’ve probably got about forty psychos in here this evening.

it takes a lot of effort to make it appear as if she’s made no effort at all.

But just because you’re on a diet it doesn’t mean you can’t look at the menu.

It’s a common trope that men are more competitive than women, but in my experience women are simply competitive in a way that’s less obvious – they’re competitive about connection.

I’m torn between protecting him and protecting the world from him. And I’m coming to the dreadful realisation I can’t do both.

At least accept her truth may not be his.’

‘Sometimes it’s hard to love things the right way,’ I say. ‘They don’t always want to be loved the way we want to love them.’

good people sometimes do bad things for the right reasons.

I love him just a tiny bit more than I hate myself.

Resilience isn’t just about exercising your strengths: it’s about finding the strength in your weaknesses.

There’s a story in Native American culture that describes the battle between two wolves that live inside us all: one wolf is evil – it is anger, violence, resentment, darkness, despair. The other wolf is good – it’s love, hope, light. Which wolf wins? The one you feed.

The dark wolf in me is strong, but I’ve worked hard all my life to starve him into submission.

Grief isn’t something that abates. You simply learn to live with it, in the spaces around it. A scar forms: to the outside world, it looks as if you’ve healed. But the pain never goes away.

Grief shapes you in unexpected ways: you are never the person you once were, but you figure out a way to move through the world.