Sally

“Mankind was just so impossibly heavy. There were so many of them and they showed no sign of halting their endless reproduction. Stop, she wanted to cry out, please stop. You cannot all fit on the space between the oceans, you cannot grow enough food on the land beneath the mountains. You cannot graze enough livestock on the grasses around your cities, you cannot build enough homes on the peaks of your hills. You must stop, so that I can rest beneath your ever-increasing weight. She wept fat tears as she heard the cries of newborn children. No more, she said to herself. No more.”
― Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships

“The presence of a person does not destruct from, but enhances the silence, if if the other person is the right sort of hill companion. The perfect hill companion is the one whose identity is for the time being merged in that of the mountains, as you feel your own to be.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

“Maybe you are thin. You hiked that trail and you are fit and beautiful and wanted and I am so proud of you, I am so in awe of your wiry brightness; and I'm miles behind you, my breathing ragged. But you didn't carry this up the mountain, You only carried yourself. How hard would you breathe if you had to carry me? You couldn't. But I can.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe