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21 " Beauty isn’t an arrangement of features, even features as perfect as Finlay Hart’s, it’s a feeling. This is how it feels in the split second you suddenly become aware that you’re falling in love with someone. The click of a jigsaw’s last piece, the rainfall of coins in a jackpot slot machine, the right song striking up and your being swept away by its opening bars. That conviction of making complete sense of the universe, in one moment. Of course. You’re where I should be. You’re here. "
― Mhairi McFarlane , Just Last Night
22 " Ninety-nine percent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play. "
23 " Being in love with someone you can’t have is misery. "
24 " It’s funny we use social media to spy on each other really, given everyone’s telling some degree of lie on there,” Justin says. “There was a photo of a hotel on Trivago doing the rounds because they’d cropped out the nuclear power station behind it. But don’t we all, in a sense, crop out our nuclear power stations? "
25 " I think the truth is: opportunities in life are like doors flashing open and slamming closed, for good. You won’t necessarily notice when they’re open or get any warning they’re going to close. If you don’t bolt through them when you can, then that is that. "
26 " Life’s veered sharply away from the script. We’re traveling a branch of an alternative future we were never meant to be on. "
27 " For what it’s worth, if you could see yourself through my eyes, I don’t think you’d think you were a busted flush at this ‘living,’ Evelyn.” “Really?” “Really. I see a person who has everything going for her. The only thing you lack is self-belief. "
28 " When you pass on something that has good things about it, but isn’t good enough, you’re gambling that something one day will feel better, aren’t you? Stick, or twist. "
29 " Someone once said to me birth was the most ordinary and extraordinary thing you’ll ever experience, simultaneously, and death is the same. The fact of yours sits there, implacably, being so banal and so mind-blowingly strange at the same time. It will always be like this, I have come to realize. The ache is permanent, it must be accommodated. It’s part of my body now. I "
30 " She would,' I smile, and get the solar plexus punch of happy-sad, lemon juice with sugar. "
31 " Nothing is for granted, and everything you know can be taken away in an instant. "
32 " That's not a particularly useful measure of your enemies, motive. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that harm done with explicit conscious intention of doing another person harm accounts for about two percent of all harm inflicted. That descriptor pretty much only applies to dictators in banana republics, serial killers, and PE teachers. "
33 " Beware the Nicest Guy in the Room, who doesn’t think his failures are the same as everyone else’s. "
34 " This is what I never knew about loss—it’s also about what you gain. You carry a weight that you never had before. It’s never behind you. It’s alongside you.“Forever”: people say it in wedding vows all the time like they understand what it means, but actual forever is fucking huge. "
35 " That’s not a particularly useful measure of your enemies, motive. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that harm done with explicit conscious intention of doing another person harm accounts for about two per cent of all harm inflicted. That descriptor pretty much only applies to dictators in banana republics, serial killers and PE teachers. "
36 " Do you ever wonder what it would be like, to drop all . . . this, with someone?” Fin says, eventually. He makes a gesture up and down from his face to his shoulders and down to his waist that leaves me nonplussed. “The defenses and the deceptions and ways we have of impressing people. To fully be yourself, with no . . . no fear, I guess? Of how you’re coming over. No management of the impression you’re making. Total honesty. "
37 " The panic that her voice, the way she spoke, her attitude, all that was unique and specific to her, would pass into history. I wanted her to be here, and for her contributions and opinions to still be with us. That she is past tense, feels so impossible, when she was so vividly alive. "
38 " wasn’t that residual build-up of unspoken gripe that seemed to end up clogging the pipes of lots of other female friendships. "
39 " The countdown to the funeral is awful. "Awful." What a limp word for this experience. Queues at the supermarket on Christmas Eve are awful. Banging your elbow on a hard surface is awful. My sliding scale for "awful" has completely changed and I need an enhanced vocabulary to deal with it. You don't realize the flippancy of your generation's attitudes and language until you grasp for the terminology that conveys the impact, and it's not there. It's been shopworn by silly jokes and ironic hyperbole. "
40 " Someone once said to me birth was the most ordinary and extraordinary thing you’ll ever experience, simultaneously, and death is the same. The fact of yours sits there, implacably, being so banal and so mind-blowingly strange at the same time. It will always be like this, I have come to realize. The ache is permanent, it must be accommodated. It’s part of my body now. "