Brad Young

“The people who lived in the portal were often compared to those legendary experiment rats who kept hitting a button over and over to get a pellet. But at least the rats were getting a pellet, or the hope of a pellet, or the memory of a pellet. When we hit the button, all we were getting was to be more of a rat.”
― Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This

“What I know: when I met you, a blue rush began. I want you to know, I no longer hold you responsible.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“Do I have a personality?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Sometimes I think I don't. That other people do and I don't. That they're more real than me, or something.”
― Camille Bordas, How to Behave in a Crowd

“I no longer had words for the Somethingness of the world, and so it quietly receded.”
― Jordan Kisner, Thin Places: Essays from In Between