Home > Work > Things We Never Said
1 " OK "
― Nick Alexander , Things We Never Said
2 " You meet people and sometimes they’re more important to you than you are to them. Sometimes you just have to give thanks for all the ways knowing them has changed you, and watch them walk away to pastures new. "
3 " all we ever see of each other is the representation we hold inside our own minds. "
4 " mean, they’ve admitted that the money won’t go to the NHS. And they’ve admitted we aren’t getting some fabulous trade deal. And they’ve said that immigration won’t even go down now, too. It’s as if everyone agrees that it’s a stupid idea, but everyone accepts that we’re going through with it anyway. It’s like a horrible toddler who has made a stupid decision but is sticking to it rather than admitting the error. It all smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face more than anything else. Cutting off your continent "
5 " No one really knows anyone. That’s amazing, isn’t it? We share everything, but we all have our secret gardens, too. We all have fantasies and fears and fetishes. We all have secrets about ourselves we don’t want to share. "
6 " TO LOSE SOMEONE YOU REALLY LOVE / IS HARD BEYOND BELIEF / YOUR HEART COMES CLOSE TO BREAKING POINT / AND NO ONE KNOWS THE GRIEF / MANY TIMES I’VE THOUGHT OF YOU / AND MANY TIMES I’VE CRIED / IF MY LOVE COULD HAVE SAVED YOU / YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE DIED. "
7 " seat "
8 " When people die, we choose to forget the arguments. We wipe out the slights and the injustices. We turn our dead into saints and that clearly doesn’t make the grieving process any easier. "
9 " Oh, you can’t hate people forever, can you? Sooner or later it always becomes clear that however awful they were to you, they were still trying to do their best. Nobody sets out to be awful, do they? But we’re all this collection of traumas and hurts and dysfunctional mumbo-jumbo trying to be functional and logical and wise. "
10 " But I never did manage to tell you because I could never quite put the words together to express something so complex and sordid and exciting and stupid,. I still wonder how that conversation might have gone. "
11 " I'm just trying to explain what happened in a way that, perhaps with time, you'll be able to understand. It wasn't a choice, you see. At any rate, it never felt like a choice. It felt like...I don't know. A compulsion, maybe? "
12 " So it's a shame. They wasted precious time tiptoeing around each other when clearly all that was required was a good heart-to-heart. "
13 " It reads ‘BLYTH MINERS WIVES. Thatcher snatched our milk, now she wants our daily bread. "
14 " In their family, even the most nuclear of disputes remained under wraps until eventually it dissipated, seemingly for the simple reason that no one was prepared to stoke the fire. "
15 " We get so set in our ways, you know? I mean, when you meet someone in your teens, like you two did, well, you're still growing, aren't you? You automatically adjust so that you fit together. But when you're my age, all the likes and dislikes are set in stone. That's the trouble. "
16 " You meet people and sometimes they’re more important to you than you are to them. Sometimes you just have to give thanks for all the ways knowing them "
17 " If loving someone was reason enough to be able to stick around, then I’d still be there beside you. And if love was ever enough to save someone’s life, then yours would have saved me, too. Because no one ever gave it more easily, or more generously, than you did. "
18 " It hadn't lasted, of course, but that was no small mercy, because who could survive with such intensity of emotion? "
19 " He understood only then how you could love someone, how you could be proud of someone, simply because the were, simply because they existed. "
20 " Anyone can talk,' she said, 'but the cleverest people spend their time listening.' And that really pleased me. It provided me with an identity, a sort of camouflage, so I could sit and listen to you all and not get noticed an not be judged for not saying anything. "
