Paradise Quotes

“Being me is a job — is labour so time-consuming and expensive that I have to have a second job just to support it. So that I can drink, I have to get drink and that isn’t something people give away and then there’s drink that I need because I have drunk and the other drink I have to keep around because, sooner or later, I will drink it. That’s a full-time occupation: that’s like being a miner, or a nurse.”
― A.L. Kennedy, Paradise

“We all need distractions, they make us laugh. And your options in life distil down to no more than this: laugh or cry, cry or laugh. Quickly, or slowly, it doesn't matter which-- you will discover the dreadful and unfunny joke that you are, that we all are.”
― A.L. Kennedy, Paradise

“It's an essential of our species to be accommodating, part of whatever crowd has been provided: obstreperous in jumble sales, plaintive among policemen, aroused in one specific dentist's chair. And then, once we've gone to the trouble of adjusting, why not keep hold of this or that stylish trait? It's not as if we're stealing - more like multiplying attributes: they stay with the original owner, but we get to play with them as well. Two of my laughs belong to a physics teacher, the way I throw my holdall into cars harks back to a film I saw once, something to do with desert highways. If we're honest, what other reason does anyone have for wasting their money on cinema trips? We go to pick up characteristics, to renovate our personalities with cladding and patches we've filched from the screen.

Nobody is complete - we all need topping up.”
― A.L. Kennedy, Paradise