Rita Galchus

“The sound of the children singing floating down from the second floor of the building always made her weep. She’d never believed in God, except when she heard children singing.”
― Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies

“I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books.”
― Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman

“I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily.”
― Rabih Alameddine, I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

“for music was the heart, he realized, the fullest expression of the human heart,”
― Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1