Quote by Alexander McCall Smith

“Only sometimes you can't feel anything about a subject without hypothesizing its extinction.”

— Richard Ford

“At that moment I realised all the things I miss, all the fascinating stories I don't get to hear, because I refuse to mix…

— Andrej Nikolaidis

“You just had to get some idea of what matters and what doesn’t, and how much, and try not to be scared of the…

— Lev Grossman

“This divergence of experience was not a stumbling block to conversation; indeed, it was what made the conversation interesting.”

— Michael David Lukas

“I never liked the influence of others when it came to feelings. I rather went through the painful process of analyzing everything half to…

— Erika M. Szabo

“Of course, such a moment isn't easy to analyze because every social encounter is laden with the unsaid and the unseen.”

— Siri Hustvedt

“another of their acquaintances finds himself mesmerised by the way that he 'always had something of ... rivetting stupidity to say on any subject'.”

— Craig Brown

“At times she had thought that this was the only kind of connection you could have with people—intense, inexplicable and ultimately incomplete.”

— Mary Gaitskill

“You have to seek out situations that make you uncomfortable and then throw yourself into them.”

— Lilly Singh

“Knowledge of anything current or faddish made me feel I was just a victim of isolation.”

— Ottessa Moshfegh

“I could never rule out my own inability to focus on things that didn’t interest me.”

— Meghan Ciana Doidge

“It seemed to me that there was a self-interest hidden in the core of all of us, which cooled us when we contemplated any…

— Helen Dunmore