Excerpts from David Nicholls' 'One Day'

'Actually my career took a bit an upturn today if you must know.'
'You got fired?'
'Promotion.' She started to laugh. 'I've been offered the job of manager.'
Dexter sat up quickly. 'In that place? You've got to turn it down.'
'Why? Nothing wrong with restaurant work.'
'Errm, you could be mining uranium with your teeth and that would be fine as long as you were happy.'

...

She looks at the cover of the Fitzgerald paperback. 'The Beautiful and Damned. It's me and you.'
'But which is which?' he says without thinking.

...

Address Book, Edit Contact, Delete Contact. 'Are you sure you want to delete Suki Mobile?' asks the phone. Fuck me, yes, yes, delete her, yes! He jabs at the buttons. Contact Deleted says the phone, but it's not enough. Contact Eradicated, Contact Vaporised, that's what he needs.

...

Excerpts from Haruki Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood'

 

Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.

.....

I don't like having something control me like that.

....

What makes us most normal is knowing that we're not normal.

....

"What possible is stuff like that for everyday life?"
"None at all. It may not serve any concrete purpose, but it does give you some kind of training to help you grasp things in general more systematically."

...

What if there were a deus ex machina in real life? Everything would be so easy! If you felt stuck or trapped, some god would swing down from up there and solve all your problems. What could be easier than that?

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No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. All we can do is see that sadness through to the very end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.

...