Adam Rotstein

“But I can’t stop myself from fixating on the way Avi spoke to me: his reticence to speak in any detail; his upbeat passive-aggression; the gentlest of impatience I could sense from both of them—“you seem fine,” “nothing you can do but move on.” I don’t like that he knows all this stuff about how I’m feeling—it’s humiliating. I’m beginning to feel a strange resentment towards him that I know is not his fault, but it makes me not want to hang out with him any more. I don’t like that my break-up has arranged us into roles where I’m falling apart and he’s always together. I know he’s not always together, but he confides in his wife and not me. The more I talk about how sad I am, the more my dignity is compromised, the more of an imbalance appears that I’m sure, on some secret level, he must enjoy.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“The platforms, designed to accommodate and harvest infinite data, inspired an infinite scroll. They encouraged a cultural impulse to fill all spare time with someone else’s thoughts. The internet was a collective howl, an outlet for everyone to prove that they mattered. The full spectrum of human emotion infused social platforms. Grief, joy, anxiety, mundanity flowed. People were saying nothing, and saying it all the time.”
― Anna Wiener, Uncanny Valley

“There’s a million miles between thirty-one and thirty-five,” she says through a yawn. “Is there? I don’t think there is.” Her eyes are closed and I can hear her breathing begin to slow.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“— I listen to In the Wee Small Hours from start to finish twice. I wonder if Jen would like it—whether she’d find it too depressing or whether she’d like its sentimentality. It’s weird not being in our subculture of two any more. There was Jen’s culture, her little habits and ways of doing things; the collection of stuff she’d already learnt she loved before we met me. Chorizo and Jonathan Franzen and long walks and the Eagles (her dad). Seeing the Christmas lights. Big dogs and Greek islands and poached eggs and tennis. Taylor Swift, frying pans in the dishwasher, the words absolutely, arsewipe, heaven. Tracy Chapman and prawn jalfrezi and Muriel Spark and HP Sauce in bacon sandwiches. And then there was my culture. Steve Martin and Aston Villa and New York and E.T. Chicken bhuna, strange-looking cats and always having squash or cans of soft drinks in the house. The Cure. Pink Floyd. Kanye West, fried eggs, ten hours’ sleep, ketchup in bacon sandwiches. Never missing dental check-ups. Sister Sledge (my mum). Watching TV even if the weather is nice. Cadbury’s”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material