Alysha Knaust

“What height is this table?' he said suddenly, just as I was about to go to the bread bin for a slice to wipe my plate with. I turned round and looked at him, wondering why he was bothering with such an easy question.
'Thirty inches,' I told him, and took a crust from the bin.
'Wrong,' he said with an eager grin. 'Two foot six.'
I shook my head at him, scowling, and wiped the brown rim of soup from the inside of my plate. There was a time when I was genuinely afraid of these idiotic questions, but now, apart from the fact that I must know the height, length, breadth, area and volume of just about every part of the house and everything in it, I can see my father's obsession for what it is. It gets embarrassing at times when there are guests in the house, even if they are family and ought to know what to expect. They'll be sitting there, probably in the lounge, wondering whether Father's going to feed them anything or just give an impromptu lecture on cancer of the colon or tapeworms, when he'll sidle up to somebody, look round to make sure everybody's watching, then in a conspiratorial stage-whisper say: 'See that door over there? It's eighty-five inches, corner to corner. ' Then he'll wink and walk off, or slide over on his seat, looking nonchalant.”
― Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory

“The narrator, thirteen-year-old Lizzie, is so close to her best friend, Evie Verver, that she even feels at times like they share a skin, and the enchantment of the Verver family is a spell she is sure will never break. All her ideas of life come from her time with them, in particular the warm glow Mr. Verver, Evie’s handsome dad, casts on the family, the home. Without even realizing all this (really, until just now), all my feelings of Meg and her family flooded the book, and how could they not? These early relationships, the way we think they will stay the same forever (we need to believe they will)—they matter. They form us. And, when they fall apart, we have to do the hard work of building ourselves back up all on our own.”
― Megan Abbott, The End of Everything

“Remove the comma, replace the comma, remove the comma, replace the comma...”
― R.D. Ronald

“It's not about danger, it's about control. Keep people scared and stupid and you can make them do anything you want.”
― Kelly Braffet, Save Yourself