The Silent Patient

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

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

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.

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

Sometimes it’s hard to grasp why the answers to the present lie in the past

I would not let Kathy go. Instead I would say nothing. I would pretend I had never read those emails. Somehow, I’d forget. I’d bury it.

I wanted to reach out and pull her close. I wanted to hold her. But I couldn’t. Kathy had gone—the person I loved so much had disappeared forever, leaving this stranger in her place

Why didn’t you come to me? I wanted to say. Why didn’t you talk to me? I was your best friend. If you had said just one word, we could have worked through it. Why didn’t you talk to me? I’m here. I’m right here