Catherine

“there was a word for this: sonder. “The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.” Incredible, how naming something took nothing away from its stagger. Language could be totally impotent like that.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“Hated cling film. Hated it more than I hated kinetic sand. Defeated by something that lacked a third dimension. While I'd been off tinkering on the cerebral plane, the smart money has been mastering its dark art. If you don't keep up with technology, it bypasses you, Sailor, but if you don't keep up with its opposite, the manual realm, it bypasses you just as surely and suddenly, there you are, a creature overtaken by evolution, obsolete, baying at the shoreline.”
― Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

“We crossed to the sea wall. It was a clear night, very beautiful, very still - you will not remember it. I took a photo to file away for the auditor who will one day decree whether I gave you a happy childhood or not, but it came out black. I like to think the image is tucked away in your mind, though, informing the man you will one day become. This is what I like to think: that it's all there, or not all of it, just the good stuff - the midsummer stars as keen as anything, the moon gilding the waves silver, the horizon a dark expanse, the world before man. The lack of bearings took down my fever too, Sailor, which was a different type of fever altogether, a fever which on one level I hope you don't inherit, and on another I pray you do, it being the fever that makes life interesting. I felt good, little Sailor, I felt like myself. I started singing to you, not because I can sing, but despite the fact that I can't.”
― Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

“Shy said It's our music, coming out of our shit towns, it's not from Staten Island or Seattle or Detroit, it's from Walsall and Watford.

Shaun and his mate Andy burst out laughing and Andy did a squeaky voice and said Fwom Wycombe and Weading and... Wochdale and Shy said Fuck off Andy, and Shaun said Argh man, learn to take a joke, yeah?”
― Max Porter, Shy