This thing about looking for someone less different... It only really worked, he realized, if you were convinced that being you wasn't so bad in the first place.

Hey, great idea: if you have kids, give your partner reading vouchers next Christmas. Each voucher entitles the bearer to two hours' reading time *while the kids are awake*. It might look like a cheapskate present, but parents will appreciate that it costs more in real terms than a Lamborghini.

It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.

I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign.

It's not what you like but what you are like that's important.

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.

One could argue that most of the trouble in the world is caused by introspection.