Peyton Bertram

“His brain sits before its cash register again, charging him for old shames as if he has not paid before”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“If you are not friends with women, they are theoretical to you.”
― Patricia Lockwood, Priestdaddy

“Sam looked at her outstretched hand, which he knew as well as any hand except his own---the precise pattern of the lines that made up the grid of her palm, the slim fingers with the purplish veins at the knuckles, the particular creamy olive hue of her skin, her delicate wrist, pinkish, with a penumbral callus that must have come from Dov, the white gold bracelet she wore that he knew had been a gift from Freda on her twelfth birthday. How could she honestly think he wouldn't know about the handcuffs? He had spent hours sitting next to her, playing games and then making them, staring at her hands as her fingers flew across a keyboard or jabbed at a controller. Tell me I don't know you, Sam thought. Tell me I don't know you when I could draw both sides of this hand, your hand, from memory.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow