passages

I hadn't yet discovered that I
lived in a sort of transparent balloon, drifting over the world without
making much contact with it, and that the people I knew appeared to
me at a different angle from the one at which they appeared to them-
selves; and that the reverse was also true. I was smaller to others,
up there in my balloon, than I was to myself. I was also blurrier.

I bought makeshift items at thrift stores in each
new location and sold them when I left. I had no tableware. Now
and then I'd indulge myself in a frill - a vulgar colourful vase. a
flea-market curio. I acquired a carved wooden hand holding a sort
of chalice with the words Souvenir of Pitcairn Island on it. I splurged
on a Thirties perfume bottle minus the stopper.
The objects I chose were designed to hold something, but I
didn't fill them up. They remained empty. They were little symbolic
shrines to thirst.

Both excerpts from "Moral Disorder" by Margaret Atwood. She's genius.

You've got to be responsible for your own happiness - you
can't expect it to come flopping through your door like a parcel.
You've got to be practical in these matters. People sit at home
thinking Some Day My Prince Will Come. But that's no good
unless you've got a sign up saying Princes Welcome Here.

Above excerpt from "Talking it Over" by Julian Barnes.