From an early age she had developed the art of being alone and generally preferred her own company to anyone elseโs. She read books at enormous speed and judged them entirely on her ability to remove her from her material surroundings. In almost all the unhappiest days of her life she had been able to escape from her own inner world by living temporarily in someone elseโs, and on the two or three occasions that she had been too upset to concentrate she had been desolate.
Sebastian FaulksThey're so attached to their patterns that they've forgotten rule number one of human behavior: there are no patterns. People just do things. There's no such things as a coherent and fully integrated human personality, let alone consistent motivation.
Sebastian FaulksAll my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond... flesh, the moment of being alive... then nothing. I had searched in superstition... But there was nothing. Then I heard the sound of my own life leaving me. It was so... tender. I regretted that I had paid it no attention. Then I believed in the wisdom of what other men had found before me... I saw that those simple things might be true... I never wanted to believe in them because it was better to fight my own battle. You can believe in something without compromising the burden of your own existence.
Sebastian Faulks