Rose Capstick

“It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it”, travelling the world or out every night, there’s a kind of tyranny in that too, that life has to be full, like your life’s a hole that you have to keep filling, a leaky bucket, and not just fulfilled but seen to be fulfilled. “You don’t have kids, why can’t you speak Portuguese?” Do I have to have hobbies and projects and lovers? Do I have to excel? Can’t I just be happy, or unhappy, just mess about and read and waste time and be unfulfilled by myself?”
― David Nicholls, You Are Here

“All those moments, those years, were his now. To remember or to forget. That’s what Ulysses said. So I choose to remember. The best man ever. And everything about him is vivid. And he is young. And he is laughing.”
― Sarah Winman, Still Life