Lisa Nielsen

“Talking about painful events doesn’t necessarily establish community – often quite the contrary. Families and organizations may reject members who air the dirty laundry; friends and family can lost patience with people who get stuck in their grief or hurt. This is one reason why trauma victims often withdraw and why their stories become rote narratives, edited into a form least likely to provoke rejection.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“If we were in his book, our hands would leave trails of light like sparklers through the sky, glowing against the night; they would crackle and fizz with magic. But we aren't, so they're just mildly clammy and soundtracked by someone throwing up against a lamp post on the promenade (loudly).”
― Maggie Harcourt, Unconventional

“The problem with happy endings is that they're either not really happy, or not really endings, you know? In real life, some things get better and some things get worse. And then eventually you die.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an “ordinary person” had been there all along, unchanged since prehistoric times I finally realized.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman