Emma

“Maybe pretense was all there was. Fashion is pretense, education is pretense, personality, too, is a form of internalized pretense. I wondered what my true essence would be, if I were solitary, in nature, untamed and unconditioned.”
― Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

“The more contradictions in your life, the more complex your identity, the harder your soul, the more difficult it is to love and be loved.”
― Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

“There isn’t a version of me that could’ve looked away from you.”
― Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep

“The priest says that love isn’t a feeling. It’s not the butterflies in your tummy you get in the giddy early days of a relationship. The butterflies don’t last, he says. Love is something you deliberately decide to do through repeated actions of care. Love is something you make.”
― Oisín McKenna, Evenings and Weekends