Jenny

“Astrid was surprised they still taught J. D. Salinger in school—he had slept with a teenager, hadn’t he? They should just be reading Toni Morrison. It seemed so easy, to cut out the creeps and sexual predators, just by cutting out all the men. Sure, you’d lose some decent people, but the net result would be so positive, who would complain?”
― Emma Straub, All Adults Here

“There may be no book on the mothers of poets, or artists in general, but it might one day be written and would be, I think, an enlightening read.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, What W.H. Auden Can Do for You

“He and Marianne can only talk about it over email, using the same communication technologies they now know are under surveillance, and it feels at times like their relationship has been captured in a complex network of state power, that the network is a form of intelligence in itself, containing them both, and containing their feelings for one another. I feel like the NSA agent reading these emails has the wrong impression of us, Marianne wrote once. They probably don't know about the time you didn't invite me to the Debs.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“...when we lose the stories we have believed about ourselves, we are losing more than stories, we are losing ourselves.”
― Lauren Groff, Arcadia