Shaun Cox

“When I submitted the first book, I just wanted to make enough money to finish the next one. I never advertised myself as a psychologically robust person, capable of withstanding extensive public inquiries into my personality and upbringing. People who intentionally become famous—I mean people who, after a little taste of fame, want more and more of it—are, and I honestly believe this, deeply psychologically ill. The fact that we are exposed to these people everywhere in our culture, as if they are not only normal but attractive and enviable, indicates the extent of our disfiguring social disease. There is something wrong with them, and when we look at them and learn from them, something goes wrong with us.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“But I will tell you Squire that having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“Language doesn't fit onto reality like a toy fitting into a slot. Reality is actually one thing and language something else.”
― Sally Rooney

“Not for the first time Marianne thinks cruelty does not only hurt the victim, but the perpetrator also, and maybe more deeply and more permanently. You learn nothing very profound about yourself simply by being bullied; but by bullying someone else you learn something you can never forget.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People