emma

“Food was how my mother expressed her love. No matter how critical or cruel she could seem—constantly pushing me to meet her intractable expectations—I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Now that she was gone, I began to study her like a stranger, rooting around her belongings in an attempt to rediscover her, trying to bring her back to life in any way that I could. In my grief I was desperate to construe the slightest thing as a sign.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“My solitude was like a gemstone. For the most part it was sparkling and resplendent – something I wore with pride. (...) But underneath this diamond of solitude was a sharp point that I occasionally caught with my bare hands, making it feel like a perilous asset rather than a precious one. Perhaps this jagged underside was essential – what made the surface of my aloneness shine so bright. But loneliness, once just sad, had recently started to feel frightening.”
― Dolly Alderton, Ghosts

“Love was an action, an instinct, a response roused by unplanned moments and small gestures, an inconvenience in someone else’s favor.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart