May 2020: Turning Thirty, by Mike Gayle

Okay, so this book was really just for a bit of fun, but of course there are still some pearlers.

On what it will be like when Matt finds his true love: “And when you look into her eyes you’ll feel like you’ve come home.”

On friendship: “Some friendships remain strong no matter how much you neglect them.”

On the type of girlfriend Matt wants: “I wanted one like I’d already had in the past but without the annoying bits. I wanted someone I knew- but who didn’t know me so well that my imperfections would put her off. I wanted someone with whom I could just be me.”

On losing people who aren’t in your life any more: “You don't miss the person you’ve lost because you got over losing them a long time ago. What you miss is the hole they should’ve left.”

On parents dying: “Mum was a really good listener. No matter what I was rambling on about , she’d always make me feel like I was the most important thing in the world. And now she’s gone I feel like all the good she worked in my life is gone too.”

On happiness: “..but what is happy? If happy is feeling carefree then I suspect I’m far from happy. But if happy is laughing so hard..that your sides hurt, if happy is looking into (their) eyes and seeing the very something you thought you’d lost a long time ago..then I am happy.”

On our preferences: “You’ve been scared of knowing what you want because you think life should be some sort of adventure where you just run around making the same mistakes again and again, never learning from them. That to you is exciting. Whereas for me exciting is knowing exactly what something’s going to be like and knowing that once I’ve got it, as long as it’s well maintained, it will always hold the same delight for me that it had the first time I encountered it. In fact, it can sometimes get better.”

On nostalgia: “We were trying to hang on to the way things used to be because we didn’t like the way the world really was.”