Stockholm Quotes

And it's hard to hate someone once you understand them.

I've been doing this a long time- manipulating people to get my way. That's why you think you love me. Because I've broken you down and built you back up to believe it. It wasn't an accident. Once you leave this behind..... you'll see that. -Caleb

Stop it. Do not feel safe with him. The Stockholm Syndrome is not your friend.

Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism and fear-mongering to dupe average people into accepting--or even demanding--their own enslavement.

In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.

Maybe it was a Patty Hearst thing. Stockholm syndrome or whatever it's called when you're being held against your will but then you become sucked in and fall in love. Or if not exactly love, you fall into something you can't see out of. 'I can't shoot a machine gun' becomes 'Hey, this hardly has any kick-back!

Distraction serves evil more than any other mental state.

Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome.

Did vampirism encourage Stockholm syndrome?

It’s called Stockholm syndrome. What’s your excuse? Mobster Decency Disorder?

Are you sad?” “Not yet.” He closes his eyes. “I’ll drive for a bit.” I hold out my hand. He shakes his head. “You’re my guest. I’ll drive. You’re tired.” “Oh, I’m your guest now?” I put as much menace as I can into my walk and he puts both hands behind his back. I smile at him and he smiles back. I’m surprised the pinprick stars above us don’t explode into silver powder. The sadness I caught in his eyes is burned away by a spark of amusement. “My hostage. My blackmailed, unwilling captive. Stockholm Shortcake.

He's beautiful because he's not and he doesn't care.

You don’t stare the devil in the eyes and come out without some of his sin. You can’t beat the devil without becoming like him.

Ha ha ha. But what if, right, when you come home, what if I ain't wearing nothing but Nutella?" "Your double negatives make me want to kill you.

Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species. --speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962

You were always saying you were gonna shoot him," he mutters, but it's kind of half-hearted. "Stupid fucking little tit, he needs a bullet in his head. What do you keep him round for, anyway?" Because he makes me laugh. Because, fuck knows why, he adores me. Because he needs somebody to look after him and nobody else knows how. Because everything about us is wrong and I never ever want to be right. Because I wake up in the morning and see him sleeping next to me with his stupid dyed hair and his stupid painted nails and his stupid toy monkey and I remember I love him so much I don't know what to do, I love him I love him I LOVE HIM.

You warped me. I was a perfectly normal- -drug addicted bisexual hooker-fucking criminal. -perfectly normal sensible man with normal sensible urges before you.

Nothing could be easier than disturbing a status quo instituted by others; the real work of the sinister current is to break the rules we rigidly establish for ourselves.” -Zeena Schreck for "Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity," University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004

I walked around Stockholm’s streets, modern and feminized, with a furious nineteenth-century man inside me.

Her apartment in Stockholm might look as if a bomb had gone off in it, but mentally Salander was extremely well organised.

Vitön lyser. Mitt ute i ishavet, trots att ingen ser det. Nu, när jag sitter i Stockholm och skriver det här, så lyser det om Vitön. Det är ingen som ser det. Men den lyser.

I've always been intrigued by Stockholm Syndrome. Reminds me of my childhood.

Nationalism is pimped-out bigotry, designed to provoke a Stockholm Syndrome in the livestock.

Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and renders them slaves to the illusory. Kundalini can only awaken people if she travels up along the spine.' --About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

Like Beauty locked up in the Beast’s castle, I developed my own brand of Stockholm syndrome, identifying with my captor.

One morning as I was leaving, the director said I didn't have to leave the set anymore. What happened? Why did they change their ways of treating me? I came to the realization that it was because I had a mother. My mother spoke highly of me, and to me. But more important, whether they met her or simply heard about her, she was there with me. She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. In Stockholm, my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value.

But Anya, you're not any girl, you are someone very special. You have a gift of happiness that's almost magical". To Anya the gentle fluttering of new life within reminded her that Adam had not only been there in Stockholm but would remain with her forever. "It is completely possible. Idiopathic reversals of ovarian failure are well documented in the literature.

The man reeks of mental illness. I can taste his pathology... Goes well with my palette.

Her loving hands, soft lips, and perfumed scents were an addiction for which he had no cure.

I think most people in long marriages have a touch of Stockholm Syndrome

Poor innocent me, just going about my business, then you raped me down the ear with your gun." Lindsay nicks the bottle, smirking just slightly, and say's " You loved it, you tart.

Valentine clears his throat. "So. Why can't you just say it?" "Say what?" "You know what." "It's hardly the time or place." "It is if you're dying." "I can't." "You're a dick. Just fucking say it!" "I can't! I'm... English." "What am I, a Martian? I say it all the time. I know you love me, why can't you say it?" "If you know, then why do I have to?" "You're missing the point a bit." "I took your bullet, you little twat, don't you dare question whether I love you." "Yeah, but you could say it." The throb of the gunshots is pounding all down his arm and body. The pain's so bad he wants to cry, like he's five and he's skinned his knee coming off his bike. "Je t'aime," he says, through gritted teeth, to shut the kid up. "Je ne sais pas pourquoi. Tu es... complètement bête, tu t'habilles comme une pute travestie, je hais ta musique, tu es fou, tu me rends fou, mais je suis fou de toi et je pense à toi tout le temps et je t'aime, oui. Tu comprends? Je t'aime. Seulement... pas en anglais. Je ne peux pas." Valentine's shifting about like he's uncomfortable. "I ain't got no idea what you just said but I think I need to change my pants." "Maintenant, ta gueule.

You are not deep and complex. You're the most 2-D person I've ever met in my life. Miyazaki drew you and threw you straight on the scrap pile because you look too anime

Stockholm' is, after all, an expression more than it is a place, both for men like Roger and for most of the rest of us, just a symbolic word to denote all the irritating people who get in the way of our happiness.

Sometimes I hate him. When he does the dishes, he shakes off each one before setting it in the drying rack. Water flies everywhere. A couple of drops always hit me in the face. I have to leave the room to avoid smashing a plate against his head.

I want to kiss him in gratitude, but I'm not about to get Stockholm Syndrome just because they feed me.

Property taxes' rank right up there with 'income taxes' in terms of immorality and destructiveness. Where 'income taxes' are simply slavery using different words, 'property taxes' are just a Mafia turf racket using different words. For the former, if you earn a living on the gang's turf, they extort you. For the latter, if you own property in their territory, they extort you. The fact that most people still imagine both to be legitimate and acceptable shows just how powerful authoritarian indoctrination is. Meanwhile, even a brief objective examination of the concepts should make anyone see the lunacy of it. 'Wait, so every time I produce anything or trade with anyone, I have to give a cut to the local crime lord??' 'Wait, so I have to keep paying every year, for the privilege of keeping the property I already finished paying for??' And not only do most people not make such obvious observations, but if they hear someone else pointing out such things, the well-trained Stockholm Syndrome slaves usually make arguments condoning their own victimization. Thus is the power of the mind control that comes from repeated exposure to BS political mythology and propaganda.

What makes the difference between a gang and a state is the belief that there is a difference between a gang and a state.

Real-time creeps back in, and Lindsay realises the kid's on his knees beside him, saying his name over and over and over. "What?" "Oh, thank fuck... Jesus, you're bleeding like hell." "Thanks, Sherlock." "Can you see a bright white light?" "Yeah." "Oh fuck. Fuck! Okay, listen to me, don't go near it, okay?" "What?" "Stay away from the light." "What are you talking about?" "That's death, innit? Don't go near it, promise me." "I mean I can see the electric lights on the ceiling, you berk." "You berk! You knob, I thought you were dying." "You didn't specify what kind of bright light, you just said bright light, you might've been testing my eyesight." "I ain't fighting with you when you've been shot.

Zeena Schreck believes that the right-hand path and the left-hand path have traditionally had the same end goal; it is only the method that is different and the fact that adepts on the left-hand path seek liberation in this life. --About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

It's just, with someone like Ellie, it'll be really hard for her not to fall back into old habits. Javier was her biggest habbit of all." The hole was opening, my heart threatening to sink in. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands and wished they were sharper. "Camden," he said pointedly. "It would be Stockholm syndrome on steroids.

This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. In Stockholm, my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value.

Statism is a mental disorder, much akin to Stockholm Syndrome.

Sometimes 'Stockholm' can actually be a compliment: a dream of somewhere bigger, where we can become someone else. Something that we long for but don't quite dare to do.

Addiction, at its worst, is akin to having Stockholm Syndrome. You're like a hostage who has developed an irrational affection for your captor. They can abuse you, torture you, even threaten to kill you, and you'll remain inexplicably and disturbingly loyal.

Are we going to go through this every time, really?" Peter tilts his head on an angle. His smile inches up a few degrees. "I want you, Stiles. And from where I’m sitting, it looks like I’ve got you.

I, on the other hand, talk like the world will only continue to spin if it can revolve around me. I like listening to you talk. He laighs. It's kinda like Stockholm syndrome. At first it was a little terrifying, but now it's sorta comforting. Like, the world could be ending, but I would come to work and you'd be talking like it's your duty.

Women misjudged his pathology because of his prolific brain-games. He used gaslighting techniques to convince her she had a break with reality. Some survivors called it 'The Ultimate Mind Screw'--sending prominent female executives, attorneys, and doctors into mental institutions to recover from him. Coercion, psychological warfare techniques and Stockholm Syndrome symptoms have left survivors sawed off at the emotional knees by a smooth-talking and ear-to-ear grinning psychological terrorist.

Tôi tự ví Venice như một cô tiểu thư yểu điệu thời Phục hưng với đầm dài lướt thướt đính hoa phớt hồng, còn Stockholm như một nữ doanh nhân trẻ không kiểu cách nhưng sang trọng, xinh đẹp trong bộ váy cắt ngắn khéo.

She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. In Stockholm, my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value. I

If I just open this window a bit, that man might put his finger up your bum. Wouldn't that be nice for you?

Poor conversation, or even its lack, murders the finer machinations of the mind,

if you never allow for the possibility that someone might care for you on your own merit, their way of demonstrating it will always feel unusual or inadequate

Everyone has Stockholmers in their life, even people from Stockholm have their own Stockholmers. only to the it's 'people who live in New York' or 'politicians in Brussels', or other people from some other place where people seem to think that they're better than the Stockholmers think they are.

When there is inconsistency in belief and action (such as being violated by someone who is supposed to love you) our mind has to make an adjustment so that thought and action are aligned. So sometimes the adjustment that the mind makes is for the victim to bring her or his behavior in line with the violator, since the violator cannot be controlled by the victim. Our greatest source of survival is to adapt to our environment. So increasing emotional intimacy with a person who is forcing physical intimacy makes sense in our minds. It resolves cognitive dissonance.

I like walking round London at night, I do it all the time. Not for no reason, just cos... it's home, innit? It's brilliant, you can't ever get bored of London cos even if you live here for like a hundred and fifty years you still won't ever know everything about it. There's always something new. Like, you're walking round somewhere you've known since you was born and you look up and there's an old clock on the side of a building you never seen before, or there's a little gargoyley face over a window or something. Don't you think it's cool?

You can buy me a drink if you want," the kid says, suddenly appearing at Pip's shoulder. He turns round a bit to look at him, trying not to smile. "That's generous of you." "Ain't it?" "What makes you think I'd wanna buy another man a drink?" "Cos your t-shirt's got a unicorn on it.

Still, Lindsay stops getting dressed, even though he's only half-done, because he gets this urge to ambush the kid with a hug. Just that, nothing else. He wraps his arms around Valentine's skinny body and pulls him close and rests his cheek on the still-damp hair and inhales the cherry-almond scent of his shampoo, and Valentine says, "Oh!" in a really odd way, like he's just read a particularly interesting fact on the back of a Penguin biscuit wrapper. Lindsay's got his eyes shut but he can feel the kid's hands creeping up his bare arms, over his shoulders. One stays there and the other comes to rest on the back of his neck, fingers playing idly with the ends of his hair, and several minutes pass without sound or movement, just the gentle thud of heartbeats. "What's that for?" Valentine asks, when Lindsay finally lets him go. "Don't know. Nothing. Just seemed the kind of thing you'd like. BAM, surprise ninja cuddles.

Popular morality blames victims for going into debt – not only individuals, but also national governments. The trick in this ideological war is to convince debtors to imagine that general prosperity depends on paying bankers and making bondholders rich – a veritable Stockholm Syndrome in which debtors identify with their financial captors.

And the victim must have been broken and must remain so, so that the externalization of evil is possible. The victim who refuses to assume this role contradicts society's simplistic view. Nobody wants to see it. People would have to take a look at themselves.

He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to know." "Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere.

Here in Stockholm on the 14th of August is a big annual book sale. A whole long street in the center of the city is occupied by tables with books that people want to sell. It is a fantastic day for those who want to get rid of some books and for those who want to pick up more. If there is not something like this where you live, maybe you can help start one.

Sometimes a night of over-eating leaves you hungry for something you can't name. An emptiness haunted me. An emptiness I didn't have a name for until I met Jeb. Now, I' m starving.

Naughty little boys who don't eat their vegetables get their bottoms smacked and go to bed without pudding,

America's state religion, is patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that 'treason' is morally worse than murder or rape.

So Sofie and I have come to Pizzeria da Michele, and these pies we have just ordered -- one for each of us -- are making us lose our minds. I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delerium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Meanwhile, Sofie is practically in tears over hers, she's having a metaphysical crisis about it, she's begging me, "Why do they even bother trying to make pizza in Stockholm? Why do we even bother eating food at all in Stockholm?

... Other students lived on campus and got drunk at parties. Other students dated and graduated and got married and led normal lives. She wanted to marry an ex-con and pretend being kidnapped had been a normal thing she could forget about. ...

Zeena Schreck believes that the right-hand path and the left-hand path have traditionally had the same end goal; it is only the method that is different and the fact that adepts on the lefthand path seek liberation in this life. --About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

One of the biggest dangers on the left-hand path, according to Zeena, is that the initiate often adheres to the need of ‘maintaining his personality’, even when consciousness expands beyond every known border. The left-hand path requires, [...] that certain aspects of the self dies, something which she believes to be elucidated in the tantric death symbolism. --About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully manifests.' --Zeena Schreck for “Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to steady his breathing, then he decides that's stupid. He's come this far, he's handcuffed to the bed, he's about to let a tattooed part-time drag queen in thigh-high leather boots fuck him. What's the point of trying for self-control?

In Demons of the Flesh, Zeena describes how Shiva and Shakti are actually ‘two sides of the same deity’. The goal of the initiate on the left-hand path is to become ‘this bisexual twin godhead’ and activate a state of perceptual sexual ecstasy within one's own consciousness. Zeena points out that a corresponding symbolism is found in the western hermeticism in the idea of ‘the inner androgyne.’ --About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

Women must hold men accountable for their behavior. Women do men no favors in terms of their growth as responsible, caring human beings if women allow men to abuse us. It is not genuine love that causes women to put up with men's destructive behavior; it is the fear-induced love produced by Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome hurts men's development as well as women's.

Too fucking late for sorry, innit? I hope he catches bubonic plague and dies in slow fucking agony the day before they legalise euthanasia and then I'm gonna go and learn Riverdance and I don't care how fucking long it takes cos I wanna do it on his grave.

Pip winds his arms up around Lindsay's neck and kisses him back, and this time he's the one to close his eyes and escape into darkness so there's nothing in the world except the soft curls under his fingers and the touch of Lindsay's breath on his mouth and the slow, sliding friction. "Lindsay, do you still hate me?" "I do when I remember to," Lindsay says quietly, but he doesn't stop moving and he doesn't stop kissing him for a long time, on his trembling mouth and his sweaty forehead and his wet, closed eyes.

Always discriminating in her affections, she clearly liked something about the Finnishman’s smell: fastidiously devoid of human odor, but a little metallic, like wind blown across corrugated tin.

It ain't embarrassing just thinking something's hot. You can be as sensible and respectable as you like through all the day and night but all that goes out the window when it's about sex. Just go with it. If it makes you hard and it ain't hurting no one who don't wanna get hurt, then it's a good thing. No drama. You need to just let go sometimes.

Zeena believes that the breaking of taboos creates access to blocked energy that is let loose in a forceful way. The left-hand path is about consciously breaking with a ‘sleepwalker orthodoxy’ to be able to act as a fully awaken and conscious individual. In her book, George Orwell (1984) is quoted: “Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” At the same time she notes that the left-hand path is the ‘way of action’. It is not about intellectual contemplation, or worse, just reading about action.' About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger from: Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity, University of Stockholm, 2004

In 1973, Jan Erik Olsson walked into a small bank in Stockholm, Sweden, brandishing a gun, wounding a police officer, and taking three women and one man hostage. During negotiations, Olsson demanded money, a getaway vehicle, and that his friend Clark Olofsson, a man with a long criminal history, be brought to the bank. The police allowed Olofsson to join his friend and together they held the four hostages captive in a bank vault for six days. During their captivity, the hostages at times were attached to snare traps around their necks, likely to kill them in the event that the police attempted to storm the bank. The hostages grew increasingly afraid and hostile toward the authorities trying to win their release and even actively resisted various rescue attempts. Afterward they refused to testify against their captors, and several continued to stay in contact with the hostage takers, who were sent to prison. Their resistance to outside help and their loyalty toward their captors was puzzling, and psychologists began to study the phenomenon in this and other hostage situations. The expression of positive feelings toward the captor and negative feelings toward those on the outside trying to win their release became known as Stockholm syndrome.

Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. "You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point?

When we consider the major themes of Venezuelan socialism, we can see right away that every one of them parallels the themes of the American left. American leftists are wannabe Maduros pretending to take their cues from Sven. If we continue to move in the direction that the left is taking us, we are going to end up not where the Scandinavians are but where the Venezuelans are. Pack your bags, and make sure you label them correctly. It’s not “Stockholm, here we come” but “Caracas, here we come.” It won’t be pretty.

Fate is empty. Any Arctic explorer or common sailor can tell you this. So you must make the best choices you can, knowing they may lead you astray, but proceeding boldly lest your life become one long monotonous drift between death and your last interesting choice.

But in my experience it’s rarely the parting that is memorable, unless it’s a death. They are always hurried, awkward affairs. Never enough time to say what you wish you had said. You must trust that your feelings are known, and that you will be remembered as you were.

He's got one leg hooked up over Lindsay's shoulder, one braced against the dashboard. He's still got his socks on, red with a little Christmas tree on each ankle. Well sexy.

...but if they go on strike you'll have to walk back. You'll have to swim back, you'll have to see Dad in his Speedos and you'll die.

More often than not, a statist's argument against Anarchism boils down to an unwillingness to take control and responsibility for their own lives, actions, and communities. The sad truth is that the human animal has been domesticated to the point where it actually fears Liberty.

We have to HIDE from each other because we think that we are the only ones BROKEN. We think we're the only ones whose original selves we ground up and smashed under the jack-booted heel of cultural lies and superstition, patriotism, war lust, war hunger, and a denial of AGGRESSION AGAINST CHILDREN THAT IS THE FOUNDATION OF CULTURE. Culture is everything that is NOT TRUE. If it's true, it's called 'math' or 'science' or 'facts'. Culture is the Stockholm syndrome we have with the historical lies that are convenient to the rules. We love the lies, because we don't think we can be loved if we don't.

Generalized Stockholm Syndrome results from having one’s physical and/or psychological survival threatened by one or more individuals and then being shown kindness by other individuals who are perceived as similar to the threatening individuals in some ways. Generalized Stockholm Syndrome is explained in its simplest form by two psychological concepts: Graham’s Stockholm Syndrome theory and stimulus generalization. Graham’s theory predicts that, because the victim is suffering despair and needs nurturance as a result of terror created by the threat to survival, he or she bonds to the first person who provides emotional relief. The bond is particularly likely to develop if the person who provides emotional relief is the abuser, because kindness by the abuser creates hope that the abuse will stop.

Can I have a tattoo?" "Ask Dad." "He says over my dead body." "Well, then." "Can I get one if I'm older?" "Yeah. If you still want one when you grow a brain." "When I'm seven? Cos that's well old." "Aahh... bit older than that, maybe." She goes tearing out of the room yelling, "PIP SAYS I CAN GET A TATTOO WHEN I'M EIGHT!

There's this thing. I can, like, do a cast of your cock and make a vibrator out of it. How cool's that? Cos then, right, then I can suck you off and have you fucking me at the same time, like there's two of you. I've gone all tingly." Lindsay doesn't know what to say for a second so he just stares at Valentine with something he imagines must look like horror. "What the hell am I doing with you?" "Broadening your horizons. Or something." "I must be crazy." "That's okay, that's why it works. We're both a bit warped. Together we make sort of one whole person.

Until I moved to Stockhold I had felt there was a continuity to my life, as if it stretched unbroken from childhood up to the present, held together by new connections, in a complex and ingenious pattern in which every phenomenon I saw was capable of evoking a memory which unleashed small landslides of feeling in me, some with a known source, others without. The people I encountered came from towns I had been to, they knew other people I had met, it was a network, and it was a tight mesh. But when I moved to Stockholm this flaring up of memories became rarer and rarer, and one day it ceased altogether. That is, I could still remember; what happened was that the memories no longer stirred anything in me. No longing, no wish to return, nothing. Just the memory, and a barely perceptible hint of an aversion to anything that was connected with it.

Eberhard died. I do not wish to articulate the details, for a form of spiritual or emotional rift in time and space was created on that day, and no matter how many years pass, I can always stretch back and know that pain as though the hole in me were being torn anew, or the sorrow may reach through with its icy finger and fell me when I’m least prepared. It is a part of me. A shadow that accompanies my shadow. There is no healing.

The second thing that can be said with regard to life expectancy is that it is not a good idea to be an American. Compared with your peers in the rest of the industrialized world, even being well-off doesn’t help you here. A randomly selected American aged forty-five to fifty-four is more than twice as likely to die, from any cause, as someone from the same age-group in Sweden. Just consider that. If you are a middle-aged American, your risk of dying before your time is more than double that of a person picked at random off the streets of Uppsala or Stockholm or Linköping. It is much the same when other nationalities are brought in for comparison. For every 400 middle-aged Americans who die each year, just 220 die in Australia, 230 in Britain, 290 in Germany, and 300 in France. These health deficits begin at birth and go right on through life. Children in the United States are 70 percent more likely to die in childhood than children in the rest of the wealthy world. Among rich countries, America is at or near the bottom for virtually every measure of medical well-being—for chronic disease, depression, drug abuse, homicide, teenage pregnancies, HIV prevalence. Even sufferers of cystic fibrosis live ten years longer on average in Canada than in the United States. What is perhaps most surprising is that all these poorer outcomes apply not just to underprivileged citizens but to prosperous white college-educated Americans when compared with their socioeconomic equivalents abroad.

There are people everywhere. Lindsay wants to be sick, it's like he can feel all their eyes on him, but he does it anyway and when he finally moves away a good minute later Valentine seems to have turned from himself into a silly bashful schoolgirl, blushing and smiling and not quite looking up. "Oh," he says, like that explains everything. "Yeah." "Thank you." "That's a shit thing to say when somebody's just ripped all his principles in half to make you feel better." "Thank you very much?" "You're welcome.

Ha ha ha. But what if, right, when you come home, what if I ain't wearing nothing but Nutella?" "Your double negatives make me want to kill you." "But what if?" "I'll throw you in the shower and make you wash it off, then I'll fuck you, then I'll kick you out." "Don't you like Nutella?" "I hate Nutella." "You're weird. Peanut butter, then. Honey. Marshmallow fluff. Jam. Lamb vindaloo?" "I can work with that one." "Might sting a bit." "That's your problem, if you're gonna stick it all up yourself and hope if gets me going.

Ez Gelek Tî Me Şeraba wan lebên lala Bi minde ez gelek tî me Bila xêra te bî cana: Nizanî ez çi birçî me? Ji baxê paxil û sîngê Eger sêvek bidî Seyda Xurînî pê ku bişkînim Diçim ser rê ku rêwî me Eger sênca rez û baxan Çirand û dest birin sêvan Dibî lêv herne ser lêvan Li min megre ku sêwî me Bi tenha ez li çolê me Serî goka di holê me Birîndari m ji wan mijgan Pêrîşani m çi xwînî me? Welatperwer bî ey xanim: Were dest deyne ser canim Birînê min qemûşk bigrin Bi jînê pir bi hêvî me De wer maçek biminde xweş Li dêm ko bisk bikin şevreş Ku ayîna te bigrim ez Ji nûve da bi zanîme? Bihayê herdû sêvên zer Li dil xistin te sed xencer Mebîne qelsemêrim ez Ji kurdên ser nişîvîme? Kurê Xesro û Guhderzim Di vê rêde gelek berzim Evîndarim ku can û dil Li ber destê te danîme Eger ez ser dibim ber pê Xwedana şal û îşerpê Dixwazim ku tu pîroz bit Di vê rê ez çi manî me? Dema çavên te yên mêrkuj Dibênim ez dibim wek mij Peyala şerbeta lêvan Kirim gawir ku yezdî me Ji te dûrim te nabînim Li ser te ez ciger xwînim Çi bêjim ko nikarim bêm Di îro ez swêdî me. Cigerxwîn Stockholm 26.9.1979

You are gonna shoot me," he says. "One day." He's still holding Lindsay's hand, he's looking down at where their fingers are wound together and not at Lindsay's face, but his voice is clear. "I ain't thick. I know you'll get sick of me. You can't just let me go, I know too much, you'd be freaked out forever in case I snitched. You'll get proper sick of me one day, not just annoyed, and then you'll shoot me. It's okay." "I won't get sick of you," Lindsay says. He feels numb and far away, as if its somebody else talking, and almost like he's going to throw up, a sort of lurch in his stomach like when you're at the top of the the Angel tube station escalator and somebody a bit too eager to get on the train shoves you from behind. "Yeah you will. I'm gonna be with you til I die, though. Least I can say that and know its true, how many people can do that? Bit romantic, really. If you squint, and look at it sideways.

Please, please, you have to, I never ask you for anything, please just do it." "What are you talking about? You always ask me for everything." "Okay, then, but you always do it, so don't change the rules now." He knows its true. That's just the way they work. As much as he grouses and sneers and makes a big show of authority, he can't deny the kid a thing. If he wants a vintage Aston Martin so he can play at being James Bond, he gets one. If he wants to go one top, he can. He says he's never been to Africa and Lindsay goes online and books flights that same day to Morocco because he wants to see the smile when he presents Valentine with tickets. When the kid suggests setting a camcorder up in the bedroom so they can watch the tape back later and laugh at their stupid sex-faces, Lindsay goes along with it, wincing all the way, because he always says no and he never really means it in the end. This is love, he supposes, and it's mental.

Yes, you do hate Switzerland. And," doctor Messerli paused for effect, "you love it. You love it and you hate it. What you don't feel is apathy. You're not indifferent. You're ambivalent." Anna had thought about this before, when nights came during which she could do nothing but wander Dietlikon's sleeping streets or hike the hill behind her house to sit upon the bench where most often she went to weep. She'd considered her ambivalence many, many times, and in the end, she's diagnosed herself with a disease that she'd also invented. Switzerland syndrome. Like Stockholm syndrome. But instead of my captors, I'm attached to the room in which I'm held captive. It's the prison I'm bound to, not the warden. Anna was absolutely right. It was the landscape. it was the geography. The fields, the streams, the lakes, the forests. And the mountains. On exceptionally clear days when the weather was right, if you walked south on Dietlikon's Bahnhofstrasse you could see the crisp outlines of snow-capped Alps against a blazing blue horizon eighty kilometers away. On these certain days it was something in the magic of the atmosphere that made them tangible and moved them close. The mutability of those particular mountains reminded Anna of herself. And it wasn't simply the natural landscape that she attached herself to emotionally. It was the cobblestone roads of Zürich's old town and the spires of this church and the towers of that one. And the trains, the trains, the goddamn trains. She could take the train anywhere she wanted to go.

She sat and watched the dockhand when it was sunny and she sat and watched him when it rained. Or when it was foggy, which is what it was nearly every morning at eight o’clock. This morning was none of the above. This morning was cold. The pier smelled of fresh water and of fish. The seagulls screeched overhead, a man’s voice shouted. Where is my brother to help me, my sister, my mother? Pasha, help me, hide in the woods where I know I can find you. Dasha, look what’s happened. Do you even see? Mama, Mama. I want my mother. Where is my family to ask things of me, to weigh on me, to intrude on me, to never let me be silent or alone, where are they to help me through this? Deda, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. This morning the dockhand did not go over to see his friend at the next pier for a smoke and a coffee. Instead, he walked across the road and sat next to her on the bench. This surprised her. But she said nothing, she just wrapped her white nurse’s coat tighter around herself, and fixed the kerchief covering her hair. In Swedish he said to her, “My name is Sven. What’s your name?” After a longish pause, she replied. “Tatiana. I don’t speak Swedish.” In English he said to her, “Do you want a cigarette?” “No,” she replied, also in English. She thought of telling him she spoke little English. She was sure he didn’t speak Russian. He asked her if he could get her a coffee, or something warm to throw over her shoulders. No and no. She did not look at him. Sven was silent a moment. “You want to get on my barge, don’t you?” he asked. “Come. I will take you.” He took her by her arm. Tatiana didn’t move. “I can see you have left something behind,” he said, pulling on her gently. “Go and retrieve it.” Tatiana did not move. “Take my cigarette, take my coffee, or get on my barge. I won’t even turn away. You don’t have to sneak past me. I would have let you on the first time you came. All you had to do was ask. You want to go to Helsinki? Fine. I know you’re not Finnish.” Sven paused. “But you are very pregnant. Two months ago it would have been easier for you. But you need to go back or go forward. How long do you plan to sit here and watch my back?” Tatiana stared into the Baltic Sea. “If I knew, would I be sitting here?” “Don’t sit here anymore. Come,” said the longshoreman. She shook her head. “Where is your husband? Where is the father of your baby?” “Dead in the Soviet Union,” Tatiana breathed out. “Ah, you’re from the Soviet Union.” He nodded. “You’ve escaped somehow? Well, you’re here, so stay. Stay in Sweden. Go to the consulate, get yourself refugee protection. We have hundreds of people getting through from Denmark. Go to the consulate.” Tatiana shook her head. “You’re going to have that baby soon,” Sven said. “Go back, or move forward.” Tatiana’s hands went around her belly. Her eyes glazed over. The dockhand patted her gently and stood up. “What will it be? You want to go back to the Soviet Union? Why?” Tatiana did not reply. How to tell him her soul had been left there? “If you go back, what happens to you?” “I die most likely,” she barely whispered. “If you go forward, what happens to you?” “I live most likely.” He clapped his hands. “What kind of a choice is that? You must go forward.” “Yes,” said Tatiana, “but how do I live like this? Look at me. You think, if I could, I wouldn’t?” “So you’re here in the Stockholm purgatory, watching me move my paper day in and day out, watching me smoke, watching me. What are you going to do? Sit with your baby on the bench? Is that what you want?” Tatiana was silent. The first time she laid eyes on him she was sitting on a bench, eating ice cream. “Go forward.” “I don’t have it in me.” He nodded. “You have it. It’s just covered up. For you it’s winter.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Summer’s here. The ice will melt.” Tatiana struggled up from the bench. Walking away, she said in Russian, “It’s not the ice anymore, my seagoing philosopher. It’s the pyre.