Tom

“Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation– the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up

“All those exhibitions I smiled through. All those parties I hosted. All those dinners I presented. All that I was, I was not. I was a lie. The antisocial party girl.”
― Emma Jane Unsworth, Adults

“Kiku teaches me a good lesson. She says that if you already know what your response will be before you've heard what the other person has said, you are not listening.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction by Elizabeth Wurtzel

“Was I, as I had long suspected, one part optimism two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails?”
― Emma Jane Unsworth, Animals