Josh

“And perhaps there was: when I look at my female students now, even the messiest, the sloppiest, the ones who drink Pepsi Max at 9 a.m., I see in them the beauty of youth—the beauty of their plumpness, their half-formed-ness, that skin that’s lit from underneath.”
― Julia May Jonas, Vladimir

“Let him be cursed by day and cursed by night. Cursed when he goes to bed and when he gets up, when he enters his home and when he leaves it. May you never forgive him, Lord, and may you never recognize him! May your anger burn from here on out against this man, may you weigh him down with all your curses, and may his name be erased from the Book of Life. We warn all never to exchange a word with him, in conversation or in writing, never to grant him any favors, never to be under one roof with him, not to be within four cubits of him, and not to read any document dictated by him or written in his hand.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob

“People want books to absorb them, but one could force attention upon a book. It would be back and forth for the first half hour, but if you meant it, you could rope your mind into sublime and single-pointed concentration.”
― Julia May Jonas, Vladimir

“I can’t even,’ she says. This is what she says when she is too angry to construct a proper sentence.”
― Fiona Mozley, Hot Stew