Erika

“Sometimes he had the feeling that he existed only on the fringes of other people’s lives, not at the heart of his own.”
― Kate Atkinson, Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories

“The essence of psychotherapy lies in a willingness to get systematically interested in why we constantly respond in the bizarre and uncalled-for ways we exhibit. It asks by what sequence of formative experiences an otherwise perfectly decent and intelligent person could be led to sob on the floor or threaten to jump out of the window after an argument. It’s less disturbed by a tantrum, a sulk, or a cold withdrawal than curious about where such over-or under-reactions might be coming from.”
― Alain de Botton, A Therapeutic Journey: Lessons from The School of Life

“You know, your genes aren't your destiny. You in particular. You have what you have, whatever you were born with, but you get to decide what to do with that. There's nobody telling you what those genes mean, what they're supposed to make you.”
― Ann Leckie, Translation State

“Women, he sneered, what are they good for? Laundry and fucking. Ramsay wondered if Gerrit had actually met Nellie. His mother seemed good for neither of those activities, but then Nellie wasn’t really a woman, she was an element, like iron.”
― Kate Atkinson, Shrines of Gaiety