Noël

“having a child, I thought, was something you should actively want, crave, even. It was not a venture for the ambivalent or passionless.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Their world is governed by children, little despots whose needs—school and camp and activities and tutors—dictate every decision, and will for the next ten, fifteen, eighteen years. Having children has provided their adulthood with an instant and nonnegotiable sense of purpose and direction: they decide the length and location of that year’s vacation; they determine if there will be any leftover money, and if so, how it might be spent; they give shape to a day, a week, a year, a life. Children are a kind of cartography, and all one has to do is obey the map they present to you on the day they are born.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Hard to believe I used to think love was such a fragile business. Once when he was still young, I saw a bit of his scalp showing through his hair and I was afraid. But it was just a cowlick. Now sometimes it shows through for real, but I feel only tenderness.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“It’s about time we stop mistaking self-knowledge for self-absorption—and realize that nobody has a monopoly on selfishness.”
― Meghan Daum, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids