“ The gilded confines of the Beauty Hall were not my preferred habitat; like the chicken that had laid the eggs for my sandwich, I was more of a free-range creature. Gail Honeyman
“ I pondered what else I should take for him. Flowers seemed wrong; they're a love token, after all. I looked in the fridge, and popped a packet of cheese slices into the bag. All men like cheese. Gail Honeyman
“ I had no idea how to respond, and opted for a smile, which serves me well on most occasions (not if it's something to do with death or illness, though -- I know that now.) Gail Honeyman
“ I was almost sad when we arrived a the squat, white clubhouse. It was halfway to dark by then, with both a moon and a sun sitting high in a sky that was sugar almond pink and shot with gold. The birds… Gail Honeyman
“ HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017 Jacket photography © Plain Picture / Hanka Steidle Extract of The Lonely City (2016) by Olivia Laing reproduced by permission from Canongate Books Ltd Gail Honeyman as… Gail Honeyman
“ He had the look of a gazelle or an impala, one of those boring beige animals with large, round eyes on the side of its face. The kind of animal that always gets eaten by a leopard in the end. Gail Honeyman
“ I have yet to find a genre of music I enjoy; it’s basically audible physics, waves and energized particles, and, like most sane people, I have no interest in physics. Gail Honeyman
“ When people ask me what I do--taxi drivers, hairdressers--I tell them I work in an office. Gail Honeyman
“ That palpable sense of Friday joy, everyone colluding with the lie that somehow the weekend would be amazing and that, next week, work would be different, better. They never learn. Gail Honeyman
“ I do feel that tube tops are best suited to the under twenty-fives, if, indeed, they are suited to anyone. Gail Honeyman
“ Was reminded of a photograph that the Telegraph had featured some time ago, of a monkey which had grabbed a camera and taken its own grinning photograph (a ‘selfie’). Gail Honeyman
“ Moments later, I received a response: Twenty-first-century communication. I fear for our nation’s standards of literacy. Gail Honeyman
“ These days, loneliness is the new cancer - a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; othe… Gail Honeyman
“ The man who had served us was lounging at the counter, nodding his head in time with the music. It was a cacophonous din, with too many guitars and not enough melody. It was, I thought, the sound of m… Gail Honeyman
“ Moments later, I received a response: :D Twenty-first-century communication. I fear for our nation’s standards of literacy. Gail Honeyman
