Nigel Jay Cooper > Quotes

“Memory is an artist, an impressionist. She adds colour, sound, smell and emotion to events at her whim. She adds, subtracts and embellishes until the event she started documenting is quite unrecognisable to the others who also experienced it, but at the same time, is more truthful to the owner of the memory. There is no reality. There are only impres- sions of past events, made by a million selves, all interacting with each other, vying for superiority. Reality doesn’t exist, perhaps in the end, that’s my only truth.”
― Nigel Jay Cooper, Beat the Rain: A dark, twisting 'fall out of love' story with an epic end you won’t see coming

“Maybe that’s the way of love. It doesn’t wait to be invited in, and it won’t be coerced. It gently creeps under your skin, a mild itch at first, not giving itself away in case you scratch it and cause an infection. But then it sinks in deeper, getting into your bloodstream. It travels. By the time it reaches your brain and you’re aware of the infection, it’s already taken over your heart. In Natalie’s experience, love is anything but innocent. It’s a captor, a guard, imprisoning you in the clutches of another, knitting the fabric of your own life to somebody else’s, whether you like it or not.”
― Nigel Jay Cooper

“For books are people... people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."
E B White.”
― Nigel Jay Cooper

“Emotions don’t arrive intact. Shards injure you incrementally, so small at first you don’t notice them. Over time, the damage builds and one day you realise the nicks and cuts have become gaping wounds. Worse still, they’ve become the very thing that defines you.”
― Nigel Jay Cooper

“She leaves the coffee shop and walks down to the seafront, standing staring for a long time at the burnt-out remains of West Pier, derelict, rusting, but somehow still beautiful, looking like there may be life left in its broken remains yet, that it could magically be reborn from its own devastation, bigger and better than ever.”
― Nigel Jay Cooper, Beat the Rain: A dark, twisting 'fall out of love' story with an epic end you won’t see coming

“Knowledge isn't always powerful. Sometimes it's just heart-breaking.”
― Nigel Jay Cooper