The Midnight Library: A Novel

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”’

and then there was the silence that Eduardo and she seemed to have cultivated. The silence of not needing to talk. Of just being together, of together-being. The way you could be happily silent with yourself.

Places are places and memories are memories and life is fucking life.’

Every life she had tried so far since entering the library had really been someone else’s dream.

she wondered if her parents had ever been in love or if they had got married because marriage was something you did at the appropriate time with the nearest available person. A game where you grabbed the first person you could find when the music stopped.

isn’t actually stage fright. My problem is life fright. And you know what? They’re fucking right. Because life is frightening, and it is frightening for a reason, and the reason is that it doesn’t matter which branch of a life we get to live, we are always the same rotten tree. I wanted to be many things in my life. All kinds of things. But if your

In this life, she clearly had no taste. But since when did taste have anything to do with happiness?

‘If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep your st

‘We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it.