Dessy

“At her age it was probably unusual, or even worrying, to be thinking about her parents so often. It was a void, an absence, a source of regret, and she was not sure she wanted to fill that emptiness. Their conversation had been interrupted before they ran out of things to say. And because she hadn't become a mother herself, perhaps she'd remained a daughter more than anything.”
― Delphine de Vigan, Kids Run the Show: The new novel from the author of No and Me

“What was there to aspire to once wealth, fame, and power had been eliminated? Was the goal of survival further survival and nothing more?”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“Maybe all people have that feeling deep down, that your hometown is something you can never really escape, but can never really go home to, either. Because it’s not home anymore. We’re not trying to make peace with it. Not with the streets and bricks of it. Just with the person we were back then. And maybe forgive ourselves for everything we thought we would become and didn’t.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Deal of a Lifetime

“I don't want to live any more. I spend most of my life not wanting to live. The only place I am happy is here where we're being taught, and I have to think of something else, or reading books, or in the cinema. Or in bed. I'm only happy when I forget to exist. When just my eyes or my ears or my skin exist. I can't remember having been happy for two or three years. Since the abortion. All I can remember is forcing myself sometimes to look happy so if I catch sight of my face in the mirror I might kid myself for a moment I really am happy.”
― John Fowles, The Magus