Irish

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“But I’m not interested in protecting you; I want to make sure the world is respecting you. Because if we genuinely respect women and teach that respect from an early age, you won’t need some man to protect you.”
― Sara Goodman Confino, Behind Every Good Man

“You’re optimistic one moment, only to be racked the next by the certainty that it will all fall to pieces. And in the end it does.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it”, travelling the world or out every night, there’s a kind of tyranny in that too, that life has to be full, like your life’s a hole that you have to keep filling, a leaky bucket, and not just fulfilled but seen to be fulfilled. “You don’t have kids, why can’t you speak Portuguese?” Do I have to have hobbies and projects and lovers? Do I have to excel? Can’t I just be happy, or unhappy, just mess about and read and waste time and be unfulfilled by myself?”
― David Nicholls, You Are Here