Home > Author > Dolly Alderton
81 " Jethro's flat was in a warehouse that, even from the outside, looked very pleased with its own conversion. "
― Dolly Alderton , Ghosts
82 " She’d ask if I had a problem with her, or if I sensed awkwardness between us. She’d tell me how important I was to Joe and how special he thought I was. She would give me a series of hugs and repeatedly tell me that she hoped we’d be friends. We’d met at least five times, and she and Joe had been going out for over a year, yet she still believed there were declarations we had to make to each other in quiet corners of social situations. I had thought about why she did this a lot and, rather generously, had come to the conclusion that Lucy was a woman who’d watched too many structured reality TV shows. She evidently felt a party wasn’t a party until two women in peplum dresses clutched hands while one says: “After you slept with Ryan, I stopped liking you as a friend, but I will always love you like a sister. "
83 " I’m fiscally conservative but socially liberal,” he said within the first two minutes of me asking him about his job. I wouldn’t be surprised if right-leaning thirty-somethings received a script in the post to prepare them for social situations. "
84 " I wanted him inside me so I could search for the ghosts inside him. In the absence of any context for who he was, I was gathering forensics from the inerasable fingerprints that had been left by those who had handled him. "
85 " We finished was such a dishonest retelling of how we’d ended, implying consent and communication, but now was not the time to debate wording. "
86 " Boys fascinated me and frightened me in equal measure. "
― Dolly Alderton , Everything I Know About Love
87 " He said he’d felt untethered in recent years – unsure of the sort of life that would make him happiest. He felt like he had to escape something, but he didn’t know what and he didn’t know where to go. I told him I thought that was the sensation commonly known as adulthood. "
88 " I liked feeling like I was a precious and valuable thing to be guarded, like a diamond necklace in transit with a security guard. Why was a sprinkling of the patriarchy so good when it came to dating? "
89 " Men always have to keep a low flame burning for every ex. It will be flickering in there for him, even if he doesn’t know it is. Whereas women always have to extinguish it. "
90 " I think something happens in your thirties where you slightly let go of this idea of the perfect career. I have so much fun outside of work, maybe it’s enough that it’s just fine. It pays okay, I get on with my colleagues. At the end of the day, it’s just ye olde day job. "
91 " How did these women do it? What was their secret? What unexpected, mystical orifice on their body did they allow these men entry to that in turn made them do whatever unreasonable thing they wanted? Or was it that they simply told them what to do and when to do it, and the imposed restriction of choice made their boyfriends feel safely shepherded rather than ready for slaughter? Had I been treating men too much like adults and not enough like little directionless lambs? "
92 " Why was a sprinkling of the patriarchy so good when it came to dating? I resented it. It was like good sea salt—just a tiny dash could really bring out the flavour of the date and it was so often delectable. "
93 " Because these men wanted to want something rather than have something. (...) He wanted to exist in a liminal state, like everything was just about to begin. He liked contemplating what our relationship might be like, without investing any time or commitment in our relationship. (...) They were like teenage boys in their rooms, coming up with lyrics to write in their notebooks. They weren’t ready to be adults, to make any choices, let alone promises. They preferred a relationship to be virtual and speculative, because when it was virtual and speculative, it could be perfect. Their girlfriend didn’t have to be human. They didn’t have to think about plans or practicalities, they weren’t burdened with the concern of another person’s happiness. And they could be heroes. They could be gods. "
94 " I break myself off into different bits to give to different people, rather than being whole. I’m so restless and unsettled. I don’t know how to be without all the things I use to prop me up. "
95 " But it would be a lie to say I think I will ever be entirely free of what happened in that time [...] You can restore your physical being to health; you can develop a ratinal, balanced, caring attitude [...] You can try as hard as you can to block it out, but sometimes, on very difficult days, it feels like you’ll never be as euphoric as that ten-year-old licking lurid jam off her fingertips, not ever again. "
96 " So little of it makes sense. So much of it is unfair. And a lot of it simply boils down to the unsatisfying formula of good and bad luck. "
97 " But I think you might be right, I think I’ve created a version of him too. Or maybe that’s all love is. So much is how we perceive someone and the memories we have of them, rather than the facts of who they are. Maybe instead of saying I love you we should say I imagine you. "
98 " Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I’m bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers. And if this is it, if this is all there is—just me and the trees and the sky and the seas—I know now that that’s enough. "
99 " It's so hard to trace which memories are yours and which ones you've borrowed from photo albums and family folklore and appropriated as your own. "
100 " to get hold of Mum, walking through various indistinguishable zones with names of different colours, trying to find someone who might be able to help me. But there were no passing staff to help me because such "