As soon as you discover you’re not the best, you throw it in and hate yourself. Same with relationships. You want too much and move on. Or she can’t stand the pursuit of perfection and chucks you out.”

The self-made hell was an interesting construct. Nobody escaped making one, at least one, in a lifetime. Some lives were nothing but. It was a tautology that self-inflicted misery was an extension of character.

No one could know what passed through the mind of a seven-month-old. A shaded emptiness, a grey winter sky against which impressions—sounds, sights, touch—burst like fireworks in arcs and cones of primary colour, instantly forgotten, instantly replaced and forgotten again. Or a deep pool into which everything fell and disappeared but remained,

He didn’t know which defective part of himself to indict, so it must be all of him.

The long letting go could be the essence of parenthood and from here was impossible to conceive.