What went wrong? Nothing and everything.

You can wait forever for the muse to sit on your shoulder, but most of the time you know what has to be done and inspiration is not going to help you.

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.

It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

I can see that now. I can see everything once it’s already happened — I’m very good at the past. It’s the present I can’t understand.

You wouldn't believe that so much could change just because a relationship ended.

That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself.