S.J. Watson Quotes & Sayings

I could see it all. The hand on the shoulder, then the hug. The mouths that find each other through the tears, the moment when guilt and the certainty that things must go no further gives way to lust and the certainty that they cannot stop. — S.J. Watson

We're constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it. — S.J. Watson

What are we, if not an accumulation of our memories? — S.J. Watson

We are in a restaurant, smilling, leaning in over a half-eaten meal, our faces flushed with love and thr bite of the sun. — S.J. Watson

Kiss me, Ben," I said. "Properly. — S.J. Watson

I am an adult, but a damaged one. — S.J. Watson

I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd fought for you. I was weak and stupid. — S.J. Watson

Work. Write. Read. Keep putting words on the page, because that's the only way you'll get better. — S.J. Watson

I step back further, until I feel cold tiles against my back. It is then I get the glimmer that I associate with memory. As my mind tries to settle on it, it flutters away, like ashes caught in a breeze, and I realize that in my life there is a then, a before, though before what I cannot say, and there is a now, and there is nothing between the two but a long, silent emptiness that has led me here, to me and him, in this house. — S.J. Watson

Pain, or pleasure. I could not tell where one ended and the other began. — S.J. Watson

And then, when there is nothing else between us but love, we can begin to find a way to truly be together. — S.J. Watson

... I feel like he's taking advantage of me. Advantage of my illness. He thinks he can rewrite history in any way that he likes and I will never know, never be any the wiser. But I do know. I know exactly what he's doing. And so I don't trust him. In the end he is pushing me away, Dr. Nash. Ruining everything. — S.J. Watson

Why did he feel that wanting to make sense of my fractured life meant that I wanted to change it in some way? — S.J. Watson

Do you trust me?
The question is usually asked before an admission that such trust is misplaced. — S.J. Watson

Instead, thoughts race, as if, in a mind devoid of memory, each idea has too much space to grow and move, to collide with others in a shower of sparks before spinning off into its own distance. I — S.J. Watson

I have no choice but to face whatever my reality has become. — S.J. Watson

She looks so young, so hungry, her eyes full of possibility, of what is in store for her. — S.J. Watson

Get busy achieving all the things in life you want to achieve", she said, "because one day you'll be fine and the next ... " I knew what she meant: Boom! My ambitions would disappear and all I would want to do would be to have children. "It's what happened to me," she said. "It'll happen to you. It happens to everyone. — S.J. Watson

I am floating, I thought, completely without anchor, at the mercy of the wind. — S.J. Watson

Is it possible to both want and not want something at the same time? For desire to ride with fear? — S.J. Watson

This is dying everyday. Over and over. — S.J. Watson

These snatched moments. Kneeling in front of the closet or leaning on the bed. Writing. I am feverish. It floods out of me, almost without thought. Pages and pages. I am here again now, while Ben thinks I am resting. I cannot stop. I want to write down everything. I wonder if this is what it was like when I wrote my novel, this pouring onto the page. Or had that been slower, more considered? I wish I could remember. — S.J. Watson

But, I realized, these truths are all I have. They are my past. They are what makes me human. Without them, I am nothing. Nothing but an animal. I — S.J. Watson

How tempting it must be for him to keep quiet, and how difficult life must be for him, knowing that I carry these jagged shards of memory with me always, everywhere, like tiny bombs, and at any moment one might pierce the surface and force me to go through the pain as if for the first time, taking him with me. — S.J. Watson

Whatever enjoyment I might have had at the time would disappear overnight like snow melting on a warm roof. — S.J. Watson

It's perfectly possible to hold two opposing points of view in the mind at once, oscillating between them. — S.J. Watson

I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to my grief. It felt better, somehow, to be helpless. I didn't feel ashamed. — S.J. Watson

To create myself from nothing. — S.J. Watson

I closed my eyes and he kissed my eyelids, barely brushing them with his lips. I felt safe, at home. I felt as if here, against his body, was the only place in which I belonged. The only place I had ever wanted to be. We lay in silence for a while, holding each other, our skin merging, our breathing synchronized. I felt as if silence might allow the moment to last for ever, which would still not be enough. — S.J. Watson

I think of my sponsor. Rachel. "Addiction is a patient disease," she said to me once. "It'll wait for your whole life, if it has to. Never forget that. — S.J. Watson

There was a letter, tucked among the pictures. It was addressed to Santa Claus and written in blue crayon. The jerky letters danced across the page. He wanted a bike, he said, or a puppy, and promised to be good. It was signed, and he had added his age. Four.
I do not know why, but as I read it, my world seemed to collapse. Grief exploded in my chest like a grenade. I had been feeling calm - not happy, not even resigned, but calm - and that serenity vanished, as if vaporized. Beneath it, I was raw. — S.J. Watson

I asked for this, I thought, at the same time as I never asked for this. Is it possible to both
want and not want something at the same time? — S.J. Watson

Thoughts race, as if, in a mind devoid of memory, each idea has too much space to grow and move, to collide with others in a shower of sparks before spinning off into its own distance. — S.J. Watson

Chrissy," she said. Her voice was quiet, measured. I thought I detected something in it, some new emotion. Fear. "Describe Ben to me. — S.J. Watson

I am sliding, down,down. Toward blackness, I must not sleep. I must not sleep.I.Must.Not.Sleep. — S.J. Watson

I want him to be happy. And I want you to be happy, too. Even if you can only find that happiness without me. — S.J. Watson

I am frightened to discover my past. What I have achieved, and what I have not. — S.J. Watson

We both pretended to attach no significance to what had happened, and so revealed just how much significance there was. — S.J. Watson

It's not life, it's just an existence, jumping from one moment to the next with no idea of the past, and no plan for the future. — S.J. Watson

I saw his eyes go up and he looked past me, toward the door, as if he were watching it, waiting. But there was no one there, it did not open, no one left or came in. I wondered if he was actually dreaming of escape. — S.J. Watson

I could think of nothing, nothing to say, nothing to feel. My mind was empty. — S.J. Watson

Two wrongs don't make anything right, but maybe they make things more equal. — S.J. Watson

Progress? You call this progress?" I was almost shouting now, anger spilled out of me as if I could no longer contain it. "If that's what it is, then I don't know if I want it." The tears were flooding now, uncontrollable. "I don't want it!" I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to my grief. It felt better, somehow, to be helpless. — S.J. Watson

I looked over at him, running in the distance. Another faulty, fucked-up brain in a healthy body. — S.J. Watson

We sat opposite each other across a table that swam with spilled coffee, warming our hands on our drinks. — S.J. Watson

It's so difficult, isn't it? To see what's going on when you're in the absolute middle of something? It's only with hindsight we can see things for what they are. — S.J. Watson

She said that you and Ben were separated. Ben left you. A year or so after you moved to Waring House." "Separated?" I said. It felt as if the room was receding, becoming vanishingly small. Disappearing. — S.J. Watson

He forgave you though,' said Claire. 'He never held it against you, ever. All he cared about was that you lived, and that you got better. He would have given everything for that. Everything. Nothing else mattered. — S.J. Watson

His grief is not new. It has had the time to bed down within him, to become part of his foundations, rather than something that rocks them. — S.J. Watson

There is so much,I thought,just under the surface. So many memories, darting like silvery minnows in a shallow stream. — S.J. Watson

With him everything is a test, affection is measured, that given weighed against that which has been received, and the balance, more often than not, disappointing him. — S.J. Watson

these truths are all I have. They are my past. They are what makes me human. Without them, I am nothing. Nothing but an animal. — S.J. Watson

Everything seems different now. The room I am in looks no more familiar to me than it did this morning when I woke up and stumbled into it, trying to find the kitchen, desperate for a drink of water, desperate to piece together what happened last night. And yet it no longer seems shot through with pain, and sadness. It no longer seems emblematic of a life I cannot consider living. The ticking of the clock at my shoulder is no longer just marking time. It speaks to me. Relax, it says. Relax, and take what comes. — S.J. Watson

The little things. Perhaps it is these trivialities I have been writing down in my book, these small hooks on which my whole life is hung. — S.J. Watson

How will I feel when I look in a mirror and see the reflection of my grandmother? — S.J. Watson

I guess sometimes it's not so much about how long you've known someone, but about what you've been through together. — S.J. Watson

I want to sleep. To find a safe place somewhere, and close my eyes, and rest, like an animal.
That is what I am. An animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world in which I find myself. — S.J. Watson

Soon I will sleep, and my brain will begin to delete everything. Tomorrow I will go through it all again. — S.J. Watson

There are memories I am better off without. Things better lost forever. — S.J. Watson

I wonder what I would find if I could go back and decipher the layers, if it were possible to delve into my past that way, but realize that, even if it were possible, it would be futile. — S.J. Watson

He put his hand on mine. I fell into him, knowing what he would do, what he must do, and he did. He opened his arms and held me, and I let him embrace me. "It's okay," he said. "It's okay. — S.J. Watson

I will never abandon you. I love you too much. — S.J. Watson

We're wearing masks, all of us, all of the time. We're presenting a face, a version of ourselves, to the world, to each other. We show a different face depending on who we're with and what they expect of us. Even when we're alone it's just another mask, the version of ourselves we'd prefer to be. — S.J. Watson

I couldn't imagine how i would get from here to there. i couldn't imagine living through a whole string of identical days. — S.J. Watson

There were never going to be any happy endings for me. I know that now. But that is all right. — S.J. Watson

The hands on the shoulder, then the hug.The mouths that find each other through the tears. — S.J. Watson