The Midnight Library - Deepstash
The Midnight Library

Irina Bălan's Key Ideas from The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig

Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:

8 ideas

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2.48K reads

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Life

Life

Well, far be it from me to say, but there is more to this world than swimming really fast. There are many different possible lives ahead fo you. Like I said last week, you could be a glaciologist.

'Want', she told her, in a measured tone, 'is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely. Maybe you have a lack problem rather than a want problem. Maybe there is a life that you really want to live.'

You can choose choices but not outcomes.

'Never underestimate the big importance of small things'

58

556 reads

Regret Overload

Doing one thing differently is often the same as doing everything differently.

'It's hard to predict, isn't it?' she asked, looking blankly in front of her as she moved a black bishop across the board to take a white pawn. 'The things that will make us happy.'

Regrets don't leave They weren't mosquito bites. They itch forever.

The flowers have water. They'll be ok. They're looked after.

52

400 reads

Love

Love

His voice, she realised, didn't sound like she remembered. It sounded emptier. A bit colder. Maybe it was tiredness. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was marriage.

Bertrand Russell wrote that 'To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three-parts dead'... But Bertrand Russell had more marriages and affairs than hot diners, so perhaps he was no on to give advice.

49

294 reads

Focus

Focus

The thing she once loved about swimming was the disappearing. In the water, her focus had been so pure that she thought of nothing else. Any school or home worries vanished. The art of swimming - she supposed like any art - was about purity. The more focused you were on the activity, the less focused you were on everything else. You kind of stopped being you and became the thing you were doing.

She felt like a learner driver at a busy junction, nervously waiting for a clear and safe patch of road.

Excellent outcomes are the result of 'the wise choice of many alternatives'. Aristotle?

52

233 reads

Books

'Librarians have knowledge. They guide you to the right books. The right worlds. They find the best places. Like soul-enhanced search engines.'

When you stay to long in a place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person. 

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242 reads

People

Never trust someone who is willingly rude to low-paid service staff.

The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks that human-to-human connection is the point of everything. But amid pure nature solitude took on a different character. It became in itsled a connection. And between her and herself.

50

244 reads

Multiverse

Everything humans see is a simplification.

Humans are fundamentally limited, generalising creatures, living on auto-pilot, who straighten out curved streets in their minds, which explains why they get lost all the time.

You can be anything you want to be. You are limited only by your imagination.

'But you will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.' Camus?

It is quite a revelation to discover that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact same place you escaped from. That the prison wasn't the place, but the perspective.

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207 reads

Why want another universe if this one has dogs?

Why want another universe if this one has dogs?

It would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunise you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness.

52

311 reads

IDEAS CURATED BY

damian.irina

I'm a Deepstasher passionate about history, art and community projects.

CURATOR'S NOTE

Life can be rather shitty sometimes, like when you're terribly depressed, but Matt Haig manages to show that it's just a matter of perspective and you can choose to chill the fuck down and enjoy some of the rides that life gives you. You know, making lemonade out of those lemons and such.

Curious about different takes? Check out our The Midnight Library Summary book page to explore multiple unique summaries written by Deepstash users.

Irina Bălan's ideas are part of this journey:

The Imposter Cure

Learn more about books with this collection

Strategies for building self-confidence

Techniques for embracing your strengths and accomplishments

Tips for seeking support and feedback

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Curious about different takes? Check out our book page to explore multiple unique summaries written by Deepstash curators:

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