Maybe all you needed in life was the belief you could change things. Somehow. Some way.

Time can be strange sometimes. It can leave imprints in particular places, leaving ghosts of memories trapped.

I want you to promise me that you'll stop comparing yourself to everyone else.' 'What?' I broke off the hug, not understanding. 'You. Evelyn. You're always like, 'I wish I coulld be like this' or 'I wish I could be more like so-and-so'. You're obsessed with being normal, but that's well boring, and you're extraordinary, Evie. Promise me you'll stop trying to stop stop being you'.

Being a woman, in this world, ultimately makes you crazy.

She has her own brand of strength,brought to the surface by the dim glow of the streetlight and the whisper of night air on her skin.

Do you think maybe your writing isn't going anymore because you're unhappy? Because you're not living the life you could? A life worth writing about? You must know that cliche-write what you know-but what do you know, Bree, when you shut the world out?

Who cares what a writer looks like as long as their words are beautiful?

Writing's much more romantic when its pen and ink and paper. It's... More timeless. and worthwhile. Think about it. There are so many words gushing out into the universe these days. All digitally. All in Comic Sans or Times New Roman. Silly Websites. Stupid news stories digitally uploaded to a 24-hour channel. Where's all this writing going? Who's keeping a note of it all? Who's in charge of deciding what's worthwhile and what isn't? But back then... Back then, if someone wanted to write something they had to buy paper. Buy it! And ink. And a pen. And they couldn't waste too many sheets cos it was expensive. So when people wrote, they wrote because it was worthwhile... not just because they had some half-baked idea and they wanted to pointlessly prove their existence by sharing it on some bloody social networking site.

Though the world was hazy, all I could think about was love. And how I'd never had it. How I would never understand what it felt like to fall asleep knowing another person was thinking of you. I would never have someone touch the small of my back as they steered me through a crowd. I would never know the contour of someone's face off-by-heart, and yet not be bored with it. And, as I sank to the grey, chewing-gum stained carpet, all I could think was how sad that was.

Maybe there in a set amount of crying your body needs to deal with any trauma. There’s a certain water-level of tears you need to shed until you can find acceptance or move on or whatever. And, if you don’t cry them out, they just catch up with you.

Bad stuff happens, people are mean, there are no steps you can take that ensure the world leaves you alone. All you can do is try not to be one of those people who contributes to the bad.

I've never seen anyone get so excited by breakfast before.""Are you serious? It's the most important meal of the day. Sometimes, at bedtime, I plan what I'm going to make for breakfast and then get so excited I can't sleep.

Yes, well, rein it in, Prom King. British people have been successfully repressing our emotions since before your country was even a thing.

Being interesting isn't important. But being happy is. As well as being a person you're proud of

Trauma. It doesn't eke itself out over time. It doesn't split itself manageably into bite-sized chunks and distribute itself equally throughout your life.Trauma is all or nothing. A tsunami wave of destruction.A tornado of unimaginable awfulness that whooshes into your life - just for one key moment - and wreaks such havoc that, in just an instant, your whole world will never be the same again.

Because now mental health disorders have gone “mainstream”. And for all the good it’s brought people like me who have been given therapy and stuff, there’s a lot of bad it’s brought too.Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. “Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I’m so OCD.”NO YOU’RE FUCKING NOT.“Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack.”NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T.“I’m so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar.”SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.Told you I got angry.These words – words like OCD and bipolar – are not words to use lightly. And yet now they’re everywhere. There are TV programmes that actually pun on them. People smile and use them, proud of themselves for learning them, like they should get a sticker or something. Not realizing that if those words are said to you by a medical health professional, as a diagnosis of something you’ll probably have for ever, they’re words you don’t appreciate being misused every single day by someone who likes to keep their house quite clean.People actually die of bipolar, you know? They jump in front of trains and tip down bottles of paracetamol and leave letters behind to their devastated families because their bullying brains just won’t let them be for five minutes and they can’t bear to live with that any more.People also die of cancer.You don’t hear people going around saying: “Oh my God, my headache is so, like, tumoury today.”Yet it’s apparently okay to make light of the language of people’s internal hell

Mental illnesses grab you by the leg, screaming, and chow you down whole.They make you selfish. They make you irrational. They make you irrational. They make you self-absorbed. They make you needy. They make you cancel plans last minute. They make you not very fun to spend time with. They make you exhausting to be near.

It was like I'd climbed Everest, had the summit in my sight, the flag in my hand, all ready to pierce it into the top of the mountain and say, "Whoopdedoo, I made it," and then an avalanche from out of nowhere swept me right back to the bottom of the mountain again. Was it worth bothering to try and climb it again? I was exhausted. I'd already climbed it. I didn't want to...but, then, what other choice was there?

Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. "Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I'm so OCD."NO YOU'RE FUCKING NOT."Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack."NO YOU FUCKING DIDN'T."I'm so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar."SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.

Everyone's always scared for someone else's generation

The true test of life isn't how you cope when everything is going in your favour; it's how you deal with things that could destroy you, if you let them.

Everyone's on the cliff edge of normal. Everyone finds life an utter nightmare sometimes, and there's no 'normal' way of dealing with it... There is no normal, Evelyn.