Just because your version of normal isn't the same as someone else's version doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.

It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.

We all are. Their idea of normal just happens to be different to some other people's idea of normal. But this is the world we live in. Some people simply cannot accept something that is outside of their experience.

Maybe I was destined to forever fall in love with people I couldn’t have. Maybe there’s a whole assortment of impossible people waiting for me to find them. Waiting to make me feel the same impossibility over and over again.

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space. The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again. So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't.

You could try to believe what you wanted, but it never worked. Your brain and your heart decided what you were going to believe and that was that. Whether you liked it or not

…there’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special, even though you know you’re not.

The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.

Either I have lot my memory.
Or I have lost my mind.
And if I'm not me, fully me, then who am I?

Like the radiographer, she seems delighted that my brain is 'perfect'. Some people have great legs, others great hair. Apparently, I have beautiful brain. It's just my luck that nobody else will ever be able to appreciate its gorgeousness unless I leave my body to science and it ends up in a jar on someone's desk. 

The truth is, I have already lived many lives in my lifetime; there have already existed more versions of me than I can count. I have been constantly changing, little by little, cell by cell, pore by pore. All these other transformations were so slow that I simply didn't notice them happening. This one is different because it was so violent and sudden, because it happened overnight. 

 

"Bastard!" "Who's a bastard?' "Oh, the world is full of bastards, Louis, but that hack from Le Matin, is leagues ahead of the rest." Camille told Louis about his encounter the previous evening.

"What's that?" "A list of wallpaper shops. Specifically those that stock the Dalmatian print." "How far have you got?" " Number thirty-seven." "And?" "And, I'm about to call number thirty-eight." "Obviously."

"It's not much, is it?" "Oh yes, there's one more thing: the letter was posted in Courbevoie, right next to the crime scene. The man's got style.

"Apparently the minister is 'deeply troubled'." "Troubled? A minister? You jest!" "Not at all, Camille. To me, a minister who is deeply troubled is deeply troubling in itself. But ministerial anxiety has practical benefit. Everything we were told was impossible yesterday is now top priority. By this afternoon you'll have a bigger squad room and lot more officers."

She is thirty-one years old and she thinks she should have met someone by now. And yet. Amelia the bright-sider believes it is better to be alone than to be someone who doesn’t share your sensibilities and interests. (It is , right?)

The things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also life.

“I worry for you.If you love everyone, you’ll end up having hurt feelings most of the time. I suppose, relative to the length of your life, you feel as if you’ve known me a rather long time. Your perspective of time is really very warped, Maya. But I’m old and soon, you’ll forget you even knew me”.

Once someone had asked A.J. if Maya was his. “You’re both black but not the same kind of black”. Maya remembers this because the remake had made A.J. use tone of voice she had never heard him use with a customer. “What is the same kind of black?”. A.J. had asked. “No, I didn’t mean to offend you”, the person had said and then the flips flops had backed their way to the door, leaving without making a purchase.

She thinks he’s about to hug her, but instead he shakes her hand, the way he would greet a colleague- perhaps an author visiting the store. A sentence occur to her: The day my father shook my hand, I knew I was a writer.

He will try again. He will never stop trying. “Maya, we are what we love”. Maya is shaking her head. “Dad, I’m sorry. I don’t understand”.”We aren’t things we collect, acquire, read. We are for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on”.