Sybil Gutkowski

“Now, bitterly, with one sweep of the front door, the compassion was spent. To the degree that Lawrence's face was familiar, it was killingly so - as if she had been gradually getting to know him for over nine years and then, bang, he was known. She'd been handed her diploma. There were no more surprises - or only this last surprise, that there were no more surprises. To torture herself, Irina kept looking, and looking, at Lawrence's face, like turning the key in an ignition several times before resigning herself that the battery was dead.”
― Lionel Shriver, The Post-Birthday World

“Sadness was a very heavy thing.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th Century invention and I don't want one. You don’t need to worry about me; I have a college education. I’m not destitute. I'm living like this by choice.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own aristocratic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions