Paula Hawkins

I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head.

I don't remember things. I black out and I can't remember where I've been or what I've done. Sometimes I wonder if I've done or said terrible things, and I can't remember. And if...if someone tells me something I've done, it doesn't even feel like me. it doesn't feel like it was me who was doing that thing. And it's so hard to feel responsible for something you don't remember. So I never feel bad enough. i feel bad, but the thing that i've done --it's removed from me. It's like it doesn't belong to me.

That's my fault, of course, because I behaved stupidly, like a child, because I didn't like feeling rejected. I need to learn to lose a little better.

I sit there on the floor with the picture in front of me and think about how things get broken all the time by accident, and how sometimes you just don't get round to getting them fixed.

Life and light will not let me be.

The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps.

I want to drag knives over my skin, just so that I can feel something other than shame, but I'm not even brave enough to do that.

A tiding of magpies: One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told

I'm well aware that there is no job more important than that of raising a child, but the problem is that it isn't valued.

I wake abruptly, my breath jagged and heart racing, my mouth stale, and I know immediately that's it. I'm awake. The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be.

We tell our stories differently, don't we, you and I?

I want to drag knives over my skin, just to feel something other than shame, but I'm not even brave enough for that

I was commissioned to write some romantic fiction, and I really liked doing those, and they were very instructive in terms of building characters and plots. But it never felt right for me.

People think it's terribly sad to spend Christmas alone, but it's no sadder, really, than spending any other day alone, is it?

I'm not romantic, and I don't like Christmas.

Hollowness: that I understand. I'm starting to believe that there isn't anything you can do to fix it. That's what I've taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps

She's cuckoo, laying her egg in my nest.

Who's to say that once I run, I'll find that isn't enough? Who's to say I won't end up feeling exactly the way I do right now-not safe, but stifled? Maybe I'll want to run again, and again, and eventually I'll end up back on those old tracks, because there's nowhere left to go. Maybe. Maybe not. You have to take the risk, don't you