jae

“What's so bad about derivation? Isn't everything derived? We just usually call it "in conversation with". Is it even possible to really copy someone? If someone tried their hardest to mimic another person, their unique life experiences and skills would still yield completely different results.”
― Ling Ling Huang, Immaculate Conception

“Everyone is jealous, but they find a way through it. Not you. You nursed your envy. Used it to punish yourself. I saw how that toxicity bled into our relationship and made it one of comparison. And because you placed me so high, you could necessarily only be low and constantly wanting. Desperate enough to betray me again and again.”
― Ling Ling Huang, Immaculate Conception

“Perhaps it was the strange distortion of the crisis, or perhaps it was simply human nature, that the pain of others was never as acute or compelling as one's own pain.”
― Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief

“The paranoia and processing eventually give way to something else: relief that someone knows the whole awful truth. Relief at finally owning every terrible thing I’ve done. And if she knows the worst of me, she must also know the best. She must know with certainty the love I’ve always had for her. But what good is a love like mine? I used my love again and again as an excuse, as absolution for the sins I committed against her. How much better would her life have been if I had hated her, or at least been indifferent? Whether or not she meant it to be, her presence becomes guidance, and shows me the only way forward.”
― Ling Ling Huang, Immaculate Conception