The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim Quotes

“I was going to say 'my friend Stuart', but I suppose he's not a friend any more. I seem to have lost a number of friends in the last few years. I don't mean that I've fallen out with them, in any dramatic way. We've just decided not to stay in touch. And that's what it's been: a decision, a conscious decision, because it's not difficult to stay in touch with people nowadays, there are so many different ways of doing it. But as you get older, I think that some friendships start to feel increasingly redundant. You just find yourself asking, "What's the point?" And then you stop.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

“As for human contact, I'd lost all appetite for it. Mankind has, as you may have noticed, become very inventive about devising new ways for people to avoid talking to each other and I'd been taking full advantage of the most recent ones. I would always send a text message rather than speak to someone on the phone. Rather than meeting with any of my friends, I would post cheerful, ironically worded status updates on Facebook, to show them all what a busy life I was leading. And presumably people had been enjoying them, because I'd got more than seventy friends on Facebook now, most of them complete strangers. But actual, face-to-face, let's-meet-for-a-coffee-and-catch-up sort of contact? I seemed to have forgotten what that was all about.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

“Le auto sono come le persone. Ogni giorno andiamo in giro in mezzo alla ressa, corriamo di qua e di là, arrivando quasi a toccarci ma in realtà c'è pochissimo contatto. Tutti quegli scontri mancati. Tutte quelle opportunità perse. E' inquietante, a pensarci bene. Forse è meglio non pensarci affatto”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

“You're right, Margaret, absolutely right. Things have changed a lot, even since I've been here. It's a different place now. Better in some ways, worse in others."
"Better!" she echoed, scornfully.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

“Ему вдруг пришло в голову, что он движется по жизни как во сне и когда-нибудь (лет этак через тридцать) он проснется лишь затем, чтобы увидеть: его время на этой земле подошло к концу, а он не успел уразуметь и малой толики происходящего.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

“Os carros são como as pessoas. Movemo-nos em círculos todos os dias, corremos daqui para ali, passamos a centímetros uns dos outros, mas há muito pouco contacto real. Tantos desencontros. Tantos «podia ter sido». É assustador, quando pensamos nisso. Provavelmente, o melhor é não pensar.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

“Save some pity for the Misfit, fighting on with bursting heart;
Not a trace of common sense, his is no common flight.
Save, save him some pity. But save the greater part
For him that sees no glimmer of the Misfit's guiding light.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim