Laura Panopoulos

“That was two years ago, when I was still finding things easier. I had forgotten about this encounter with Innerd. What did he matter? But later on, a fast-moving planet had suddenly crossed an invisible point and a change had occurred, one of the kind we're not aware of down here. Perhaps tiny signs reveal this sort of cosmic event to us, but we don't notice them either - someone has stepped on a twig lying on the path, a bottle of beer has cracked in the freezer when someone forgot to remove it in time, or two red fruits have fallen from a wild rose bush. How could we possibly understand it all?”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“Being alone with her is like opening a door away from normal life and then closing it behind him.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“It's clear that the largest things are contained in the smallest. There can be no doubt about it. At this very moment, as I write, there's a planetary configuration on this table, the entire Cosmos, if you like: a thermometer, a coin, an aluminium spoon and a porcelain cup. A key, a mobile phone, a piece of paper and a pen. And one of my grey hairs, whose atoms preserve the memory of the origins of life, of the cosmic Catastrophe that gave the world its beginning.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People