“Shame isn't a quiet grey cloud, shame is a drowning man who claws his way on top of you, scratching and tearing your skin, pushing you under the surface.”

“Once they know they've got a hold of your shame, they can shake it out and hold it up for the all world to see. And you become less than it. You become something disgusting.”

“Without wonder, you are dead and I am older. The girl in the mirror looks devastated. Like someone really has pushed a brick through her ribcage.”

“It’s always about the money. And the problem with that is: if the people who love you are always weighing up what you cost, then you’re never really sure who’s got your back.”

“I stare at his forearms. I can make out a naked woman with a snake going up her vagina. She’s holding a knife, slitting her own throat. There are three playing cards on the back of his right hand: the Queen of Spades, the Jack of Hearts and the Joker. Red flames lick his elbow.There’s a watch tattooed on his left wrist with ‘Fuck Time’ inscribed on its face. Fuck o’clock.He’s not that tall, but his body is carefully cut. The lines of his face, his cheekbones and jaw, are sharp and precise. I can see the tufts of his blond underarm hairs and under them the ladder of his ribs. He’s beautiful, in the way that a knife is beautiful.”

“I let myself feel good for no reason. I let joy happen right there and then, and it's inside me and around me, it's the lights on the road ahead, the clean black of the night, the cold air coming through the window. It's like hearing a song for the first time and being struck by it, haunted by it, wanting to hunt it down and catch it, because the song sums up something you didn't know you wanted to say, giving you chills and goose bumps. But even as you find out what it's called, and you're thinking you'll download it, you've already lost. Because the feeling was right then and there and it's already fading like a dream.You just have to see those times for what they are: a chance to look down at your life. And when you do, you see it's a skin made up of shiny little moments.”

“This is its ancient soul, the quiet place, away from all its beats and rhythms. And my mind is unable to comprehend the sheer expanse of it. It’s as though I’ve suddenly blinked and found myself standing on a tightrope strung between two skyscrapers. I am paralysed by awe. The feeling you get when confronted by something infinite and inevitable and indifferent to you.”