Ashley

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”
― John Williams, Stoner

“Funny," he said. "You're like a little death." "What?" I asked. "You are. You're...gloomy yet charming. I like it." "Well, no on has said that before." "You're gently death-ish. You know about death, you're aware of it, and most people aren't anymore. But you're not a killer. You're a soft darkness." A soft darkness.”
― Melissa Broder, The Pisces

“I do not knock on Fiona’s door when I’m trying to have an upbeat good time; I am coming to her with the shattered pieces of my heart in my hands, setting the pointy shards at her feet, and lying very still until she stomps on them with her words.”
― Samantha Irby, Wow, No Thank You.

“Lust and learning,' Katherine once said. 'That's really all there is, isn't it?' And it seemed to Stoner that that was exactly true, that that was one of the things he had learned.”
― John Williams, Stoner