Shaun Cox

“In social networks, the function of "friends" is primarily to heighten narcissism by granting attention, as consumers, to the ego exhibited as a commodity.”
― Byung-Chul Han, Müdigkeitsgesellschaft

“Nuala, on the other hand, exerts influence over her husband and children primarily through a tendency to become irrationally anxious and ‘upset’. Much of the family life has therefore always been arranged around their collective efforts to prevent Nuala from becoming ‘upset’, which involves concealing from her, by almost any means necessary, the existence of any problems or potential conflicts within the family circle. Nuala lives, to some degree, in a fictitious world acted out for her by a special dramatic troupe consisting of her own children and husband, a world in which none of her loved ones have ever been unhappy, sick, depressed, disappointed, hurt, anxious or frightened. But this, in Anna’s view, has also had the perverse effect of making Nuala feel as if her own anxieties are in fact the only anxieties that anyone on earth has ever experienced, and that her suffering is something she alone, the only unhappy person in a world of thriving and self-confident individuals, can understand.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“The most distressing thing about Bridget’s attitude to Margaret, and especially towards her marriage, is not the belief the Bridget is being cruel, so much as the suspicion, bred in the bone, a lifelong instinct, but after all she might be right. Can the deep childhood impulse to trust one’s mother, to agree with her against oneself, ever be wrestled down by the comparatively thin force of reasoned argument? Are there even reasoned arguments to be made in matters of love, marriage, intimate life?”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“He often makes blithe remarks about things he 'wishes'. I wish you didn't have to go, he says when she's leaving, or: I wish you could stay the night. If he really wished any of those things, Marianne knows, then they would happen. Connell always gets what he wants, and then feels sorry for himself when what he wants doesn't make him happy.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People