Quotes from book

Shampoo Planet

“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.”

“Our achievements may make us interesting, Tyler, but our darkness makes us lovable.”

“You are paralyzed by the fact that cruelty is often amusing.”

“Your refusal to acknowledge the dark side of humanity makes you prey to that dark side.”

“You worry that if you lower your guard, even for one second, your whole world will disintegrate into chaos.”

“I have this feeling watching Jasmine - that as you grow older, it becomes harder to feel 100 percent happy; you learn all the things that can go wrong; you become superstitious about tempting fate, about bringing disaster upon your life by accidentally feeling too good one day.”

“I'm beginning to feel like a microwaved egg that will explode if anybody so much as breathes onto the surface.”

“When you grow older a dreadful, horrible sensation will come over you. It's called loneliness, and you think you know what it is now, but you don't. Here is a list of the symptoms, and don't worry - loneliness is the most universal sensation on the planet. Just remember one fact - loneliness will pass. You will survive and you will be a better human for it.”

“You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you worry you are an interchangeable cog.”

“You still don't know what you do well.”

“You don't believe magic is possible in lives lived within traditional boundaries.”

“Meeting Anna-Louise was like finding a stranger's shopping list on the mall floor and realising there are other, more interesting diets than your own. It was the first time I ever felt incomplete.”

“We call Jasmine's room 'The Harem,' a sexy place, about which Dan never complained, even though his own possessions, his laptop PC and briefcase, for example, looked crazy in the environment, invasive and overcomplex, like Stealth bombers in SmurfWorld.”

“Your inability to achieve solitude makes you settle for substandard relationships.”

“I think about how I think I know a person then 'poof!' I discover I only knew a cartoon version. Suddenly there's this fleshy, demanding, noisy creature in front of me, unknowable and just as lost as I am, and equally unable to remember that every soul in the world is hurting, not just themselves.”

“You wilfully ignore the small, gentle observations in life which you know are the most important.”

“I tell you what: I give you all of my strength - I seal it inside a little green envelope and mail it to you with hope and peace and much much love. Take all you need and take it quickly.”

“Is the hotel Marge? It has to be Marge. I want atmosphere.' Marge is Anna-Louise's word describing sad, 1950s-ish diner-type places where the waitresses are named Marge.”

“Preemptive boringness. Being one-dimensional is the most satisfying method of coping with out-of-control people - with any situation that's out of control … Don't let people know the ideas you love, the games you've played, the places you've visited in your mind. Keep your treasure to yourself.”