e.s.

“When Aldo spoke of Regan his voice had a tendency to change, illumination rising near his cheeks. "You should see her work," he would say the same way someone else might have said: Come outside, come look at the stars.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“He matched her distance again, their foreheads meeting like old friends; Hello, how are you, been a long time, how nice it is to be here with you.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“You are brilliant. Tell your mind to be kind to you today.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Were they aware, in the intensity of their embrace, of something slightly ridiculous about this tableau, something almost comical, as someone nearby sneezed violently into a crumpled tissue; as a dirty discarded plastic bottle scuttled along the platform under a breath of wind; as a mechanised billboard on the station wall rotated from an advertisement for hair products to an advertisement for car insurance; as life in its ordinariness and even ugly vulgarity imposed itself everywhere all around them? Or were they in this moment unaware, or something more than unaware—were they somehow invulnerable to, untouched by, vulgarity and ugliness, glancing for a moment into something deeper, something concealed beneath the surface of life, not unreality but a hidden reality: the presence at all times, in all places, of a beautiful world?”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You