aw.

“Elites with entrenched interests will always hate you," Daji said. "That's inevitable. But the elites don't matter, the masses do. What you have to do is shroud yourself in myth. Your enemies' deaths become part of your legend. Eventually you will become so far removed from reality that right and wrong don't apply to you. Your identity becomes part and parcel of the idea of the nation itself. They'll love you no matter what you do.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“Nothing lasts. The world does not exist.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Burning God

“For me lying created just the right amount of problems and what you saw was just one of my four or five faces- each real, each with different needs. The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to compress myself down into a single convenient entity that one person could understand. I was a kaleidoscope, each glittering piece of glass changing as I turned.”
― Miranda July, All Fours

“...it was magic to feel you had things to say and people to say them to, and a gentle fog of contentment filled the bar...”
― Andrew O'Hagan, Mayflies