Sometimes we meet people and are so symbiotic with them, it's as if we are one person, with one mind, one destiny

Then the musical instruments appeared. Dad’s snare drum from the house, Henry’s guitar from his car, Adam’s spare guitar from my room. Everyone was jamming together, singing songs: Dad’s songs, Adam’s songs, old Clash songs, old Wipers songs. Teddy was dancing around, the blond of his hair reflecting the golden flames. I remember watching it all and getting that tickling in my chest and thinking to myself: This is what happiness feels like.

No one is who they pretend to be

Willem, I suspect deep down you know exactly why you're here, exactly what you want, but you're unwilling to the wanting, let alone the having. Because both of those propositions are terrifying.

Every fiction has its base in fact.

Can you move on from something when you're not sure what it is you're moving on from?

For the hundredth time tonight, I’m back with Lulu, on Jacques’s barge, the improbably named Viola. She’d just toldme the story of double happiness and we were arguing over the meaning. She’d thought it meant the luck of the boy getting the job and the girl. But I’d disagreed. It was the couplet fitting together, the two halves finding each other. It was love. But maybe we were both wrong, and both right. It’s not either or, not luck or love. Not fate or will. Maybe for double happiness, you need both.