Taylor > Taylor's Quotes

“I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn’t that why we commit to another? It’s not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn’t marry one person. We’d just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone. I want someone to know me, really know me, almost like that person could get into my head. What would that feel like? To have access, to know what it’s like in someone else’s head. To rely on someone else, have him rely on you. That’s not a biological connection like the one between parents and children. This kind of relationship would be chosen. It would be something cooler, harder to achieve than one built on biology and shared genetics. I think that’s it. Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can't fake a thought.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“For years, my life has been flat. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I’ve never admitted it before. I’m not depressed, I don’t think. That’s not what I’m saying. Just flat, listless. So much has felt accidental, unnecessary, arbitrary. It’s been lacking a dimension. Something seems to be missing.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“I think a lot of what we learn about others isn’t what they tell us. It’s what we observe. People can tell us anything they want.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“But isn’t being alone closer to the truest version of ourselves, when we’re not linked to another, not diluted by their presence and judgments? We form relationships with others, friends, family. That’s fine. Those relationships don’t bind the way love does. We can still have lovers, short-term. But only when alone can we focus on ourselves, know ourselves. How can we know ourselves without this solitude?”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They're both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“People talk about the ability to endure. To endure anything and everything, to keep going, to be strong. But you can do that only if you're not alone. That's always the infrastructure life's built on. A closeness with others. Alone it all becomes a struggle of mere endurance.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“On the nights I can’t sleep, like that one, like so many recently, I wish I could just turn my mind off like a lamp.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates. There’s not much I can do about it. Trust me. It doesn’t go away. It’s there whether I like it or not. It’s there when I eat. When I go to bed. It’s there when I sleep. It’s there when I wake up. It’s always there. Always.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Is intelligence always good? I wonder. What if intelligence is wasted? What if intelligence leads to more loneliness rather than to fulfillment? What if instead of productivity and clarity, it generates pain, isolation, and regret?”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“That's the thing. Part of everything will always be forgettable. No matter how good or remarkable it is. It literally has to be. To be.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“The more we tell ourselves that we should always be happy, that happiness in an end in itself, the worse it gets.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Reality only happens once."
(P. 48)”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Are small, critical actions enough? Small gestures make us feel good—about ourselves, about others. Small things connect us. They feel like everything. A lot depends on them. It’s not unlike religion and God. We believe in certain constructs that help us understand life. Not only to understand it, but as a means of providing comfort.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Depression is a serious illness. It’s physically painful, debilitating. And you can’t just decide to get over it in the same way you can’t just decide to get over cancer. Sadness is a normal human condition, no different from happiness. You wouldn’t think of happiness as an illness.”
― Iain Reid, I’m Thinking of Ending Things

“You also know things are real when they can be lost.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Every story is made up. Even the real ones.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“It seems to me, maybe for the first time, that there are varying degrees of dead. Like there are varying degrees of everything: of being alive, of being in love, of being committed, of being sure.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“We can't and don't know what others are thinking. We can't and don't know what motivations people have for doing the things they do. Ever. Not entirely. This was my terrifying youthful epiphany. We just never really know anyone. I don't. Neither do you.

It's amazing that relationships can form and last under the constraints of never fully knowing. Never knowing for sure what the other person is thinking, never knowing for sure who the other person is. We can't do whatever we want. There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say.

But we can think whatever we want.

Anyone can think anything. Thoughts are the only reality. It's true, I'm sure of it now. Thoughts are never faked or bluffed. This simple realization has stayed with me. It has bothered me for years and years. It still does.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“We can't do whatever we want. There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say.

But we can think whatever we want.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Something that disorients, that unsettles what’s taken for granted, something that disturbs and disrupts reality—that’s scary.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“The possibility of evil shocks you. But you aren’t the target, so it’s okay. You forget about it. You move on. It’s not happening to you. It happened to someone else.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“My eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You get used to the dark after awhile. Not the quiet.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“How much of you can fall off before something important is lost?”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“School is the place we all have to go. There is potential. School is about the future. Looking forward to something, progression, growing, maturing. It's supposed to be safe here, but is has become the opposite. It feels like a prison.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“The idea that we are better off with one person for the rest of our lives is not an innate truth of existence. It’s a belief we want to be true. Forfeiting solitude, independence, is a much greater sacrifice than most of us realize. Sharing a habitat, a life, is for sure harder than being alone. In fact, coupled living seems virtually impossible, doesn’t it? To find another person to spend all your life with? To age with and change with? To see every day, to respond to their moods and needs?”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“What if suffering doesn’t end with death? How can we know? What if it doesn’t get better? What if death isn’t an escape? What if the maggots continue to feed and feed and feed and continue to be felt? This possibility scares me.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“I can't say this to Jake and I don't, but maybe it's better to be alone. Why abandon the routine we each master? Why give up the opportunity for many diverse relationships in exchange for one? There's plenty of good with coupling up, I get it, but is it better? When single, I tend to focus on how much the company of someone would improve my life, increase my happiness. But does it?”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“To really know ourselves we have to question ourselves. I always liked that idea.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things