Eda J. Vor > Quotes

“Some people just live out their whole lives with some sort of ache in their heart they never resolve.”
― Eda J. Vor, Like Two Opposite Things

“But this is the power of storytelling, isn’t it? To make sense of the things we can’t figure out ourselves. We make up gods and monsters and origin stories and archetypes and tell each other it’s all explainable so we don’t have to feel the weight of the unknown. That’s the theory anyway. The practice is that we’re all so much better at seeing the faults of others, at watching them make their mistakes and judging from afar, our social telescopes so much more powerful than the microscopes we forget to use on ourselves.”
― Eda J. Vor, Fully Functioning: a postpartum descent into obsessive fangirling

“Apparently, as long as I continue to feed my children, there’s nothing wrong with me. A functional mom is one who can change a diaper and remember bedtimes. I’m not falling apart, so I’m fine.”
― Eda J. Vor, Fully Functioning: a postpartum descent into obsessive fangirling

“We need so desperately to believe in a forever love--so much so that there’s an entire genre of entertainment dedicated to young lovers who persist against all odds, medical or fantastical or otherwise--that when it doesn’t happen, we fall a little bit to pieces. The spell is broken. Evil wins. Because that’s a true representation of reality, that loss of hope, that perversion of purity. That’s what we’re all living with anyway and seeing it represented in our entertainment reinforces what we already know to be true: there is no perfect love or life or quest or character. We’re all just fumbling along, trying to make the best of whatever it is we can find, whatever small comforts we can take, whatever compromise seems the least devastating.”
― Eda J. Vor, Fully Functioning: a postpartum descent into obsessive fangirling

“It wasn’t one event, but a series of events followed by years of research adjudicated by panels of experts and committees of laypeople until a decision was finally made: we’ve been going about handling dead people all wrong.”
― Eda J. Vor, Lay Her Ghosts to Rest

“It must be difficult to be a mother,” she continued thoughtfully. “To create and nurture and raise a tiny person, to invest all of your heart in it, only to have them grow up and not need you anymore. It must hurt to feel that kind of abandonment. To be forced to let go because of time and nature and the well-being of… both the child and the mother, I suppose?”
― Eda J. Vor, Lay Her Ghosts to Rest

“Like the feeling of a carbonated beverage slipping down the throat, the bubbles rushing and popping as they make their descent, the air around a departed spirit fizzles, dissipating from a thick electric presence to an ephemeral blink of light and color, like the aftereffect of too many flash cameras going off at once.”
― Eda J. Vor, Lay Her Ghosts to Rest

“No one really cares what you look like." I'm such a hypocrite, I think, and pull my shirt up over my head. I want it to be true so I decide to act like it is. If a pretty thin girl can be self-conscious about people looking at her in a bathing suit, then maybe the problem isn't what other people think so much as what we think of ourselves.”
― Eda J. Vor, Like Two Opposite Things

“He holds his hand out for me to see it like he’s cradling something delicate or breakable, an egg or like, his heart.”
― Eda J. Vor, Like Two Opposite Things