Found in a Bookshop

by Stephanie Butland

You are allowed to not-love the novel the rest of the world is raving about; you are allowed to cordially loathe your sister’s favourite author. Reading is not a test. Whether or not you love a book is not a matter for debate; and not something you can be persuaded into. Books are the magical everyday that is all your own.

it’s good because sometimes you don’t know what’s good for you. And you need somebody else to tell you.’

if the people making the decisions were well-read and intellectually open, we might be able to have better conversations about what needs to happen.

when things end, the things unsaid are not necessarily things unresolved. And that if there was a fracture in a relationship then the relationship simply would not hold. He’s telling her that they are all right, and they always have been.

Here is a question that no one should ask: What’s your favourite book? And, if you are ever asked it, you are 100 percent within your rights to refuse to answer. Reasonable questions about books are: What’s your favourite book to read when you are sad? What’s your favourite book for comfort? What’s the book that’s guaranteed to make you laugh? Which book has stayed with you the longest? Which book kept you awake at night? Which book do you wish more people knew about? Which book changed the way you think about the world? You could choose to answer one of those instead.

‘No one can be happy in eternal solitude’.

It could be that she’s equal to what’s ahead. She doesn’t want to be – she wants to lie down and die, when George does – but that’s not the point. She must do what they’ve always done. Adapt. Make a new place when they outgrow the old.

I suppose I could do something amazing if I wanted to. But I really don’t. I want to get through my work for the day and then cook some pasta and watch TV.

‘If I could change one thing about you I would have you know how – impressive you are.’

I don’t think time heals, but things that take up time are useful. I’ve got the tidiest kitchen cupboards you have ever seen.

‘She was what she was because you are what you are,’

‘I shouldn’t be getting older if she isn’t.’