Matt Haig

“There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.”

“Do you know how magic works? The kind of magic that gets reindeer to fly in the sky? The kind that helps Father Christmas travel around the world in a single night? The kind that can stop ti...”

“I have been in love only once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It's a swe...”

“I Like The Way That when you Tilt Poems On their side They Look like Miniature Cities From A long way Away. Skyscrapers Made out Of Words.”

“The key to happiness - or that even more desired thing, calmness - lies not in always thinking happy thoughts. No. That is impossible. No mind on earth with any kind of intelligence could sp...”

“Maybe Shakespeare was right. Maybe all the world was a stage. Maybe without the act everything would fall apart. The key to happiness wasn't being yourself, because what did that even mean?...”

“Music is about time,' I told her. 'It is about controlling time.' When she stopped playing, she looked thoughtful for a moment and said something like, 'I sometimes want to stop time. I some...”

“But there was a sense of something tipping out of balance. The times seemed out of joint. There was too much decadence. Too much intensity. Too much change. Too much happiness juxtaposed wit...”

“Toronto is the greatest and happiest city on earth, but despite that — maybe because of that — it made me unhappy, as I just lived in an apartment there, never seeing anyone. Once I went to...”

“Perhaps a wish was just a hope with better aim.”

“I feel a swell of pride. This. This right here is why I wanted to become a teacher. To know that it is possible to change the world for the better, in however small a way.”

“He smiles a little. This is the point of being a teacher. A glimmer of hope where you thought it didn't exist.”

“What doesn't kill you very often makes you weaker. What doesn't kill you can leave you limping for the rest of your days. What doesn't kill you can make you scared to leave your house, or ev...”

“[…] on questioning why she looked so sad, she would remark, 'My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.' 'That's Montaigne, isn't it?' And she would give th...”

“This is the whole stupid thing about all these unblood relationships. They depend on people staying the same, standing in the same spot they were in over a decade ago, when they first met. S...”

“And then he - Tchaikovsky - turned towards the little lectern that was on the stage, picked up his baton and held it in the air. He paused a moment. It was like watching an old wizard with a...”

“A kiss,' she said, 'is like music. It stops time... If you feel for someone, just one single kiss can stop the sparrows, they say. Do you think that can happen?' And she placed the lute besi...”

“Music is about time,’ I told her. ‘It is about controlling time.”

“I loved someone once. A woman. I loved her madly. Do you understand? We were together, in secret, for nearly twenty years. And we were told we couldn't talk about that love… because it was d...”

“It occurred to me that human beings didn’t live beyond a hundred because they simply weren’t up for it. Psychologically, I mean. You kind of ran out. There wasn’t enough self to keep going....”