147 Quotes by Glenn Haybittle

You know when you’re on a train at a station and there’s another train opposite and the other train starts moving and there’s that utterly convincing illusion that it’s your train that is moving and you feel a bit disorientated when you realise you’re still standing still. That’s what my life has been like since Freddie left.

At that moment the ghost dance seems to Zinnia like the relationship of two people who never quite consummate the love they feel for each other.

Every night I build a fire for you, Alowa. Every night I dance on the rooftop for you. Look at the flames, Alowa. Aren’t they beautiful? Look at the smoke. I’m dancing in the smoke, Alowa.

Fame, like being in love, can at times bring with it the conceited (and obnoxious) belief that you are a somebody person in a world of nobody people.

Strange, she thinks, how vulnerable the back of your neck feels when you listen to silence.

But sometimes someone will wear something that allows you a glimpse of their secret self. The essence becomes distinct for a moment.

Outside, he stretches up his arms beneath the brightening sky. His breath and heartbeat like a gift newly restored to him.

Memories of shame have greater reserves of power to haunt than even memories of love.

Esme skips on ahead. Jumping from one foot to the other, as if she can see markings on the ground he can’t. She is constantly jumping and skipping and twirling with the lightness of falling snow, looking up at him bright with questions, tugging on his hand, dashing off with all the speed her body is capable of and then skipping on the spot up ahead as if consecrating it for his arrival. It is so easy to make her happy that it seems like cheating at times.