Maryanne Snell

“Twice in her life she had mistaken something else for it; it was like seeing somebody in the street who you think is a friend, you whistle and wave and run after him, and it is not only not the friend, but not even very like him. A few minutes later the real friend appears in view, and then you can't imagine how you ever mistook that other person for him. Linda was now looking upon the authentic face of love, and she knew it, but it frightened her. That it should come so casually, so much by a series of accidents, was frightening.”
― Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate

“Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“He can’t even think how to describe it. It’s like an art museum and an overflowing library were relocated into a subway system.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“The will to be polite, to maintain civility and normalcy, is fearfully strong. I wonder sometimes how much evil is permitted to run unchecked simply because it would be rude to interrupt it.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January