The Silent Patient

“A baby cannot hate the mother, without the mother first hating the baby.”

Remember, love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love.”

I mustn’t put strangeness where there’s nothing. I think that is the danger of keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything, you are on the lookout, and you continually stretch the truth.

That’s the truth. I didn’t kill Gabriel. He killed me.

All I did was pull the trigger.

Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word, which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg.

that we weren’t loved when we needed it most.

But I wouldn’t forget about her. How could I? Without Kathy, I’d return to that empty, solitary existence I had endured before. I’d never meet anyone like her again, never have that same connection or experience that depth of feeling for another human being.

I was crying for all of us. There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it.

I could feel nothing. I was disconnected from my emotions, like a hand severed from a wrist

I shut my eyes and waited for death.

But death didn’t come.