Zoya

“How to read her coldness: She is preoccupied. She is unhappy. She is unhappy with you. You did something and now she’s unhappy, and you need to find out what it is so she will stop being unhappy. You talk to her. You are clear. You think you are clear. You say what you are thinking and you say it after thinking a lot, and yet when she repeats what you’ve said back to you nothing makes sense. Did you say that? Really? You can’t remember saying that or even thinking it, and yet she is letting you know that it was said, and you definitely meant it that way.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn’t that they’ll remember; it’s that you’ll remember. —Sarah Manguso”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“You tried to tell your story to people who didn't know how to listen.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“This was the body of a beautiful young woman, conventionally an object of desire, and yet it was a body from which all desire had been eliminated.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian