Maria Stone

“Then it clobbers you like a wave you didn’t see coming. Crashes into you and pulls you under so that, for a few seconds, you can’t breathe.”
― Wally Lamb, The River Is Waiting

“the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere

“Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere

“Death is sometimes so discreet that it steals in noiselessly, stays for only a moment and carries off its prey, and I didn’t notice the change.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men