carolina

“jem has proposed to me,” she blurted out. “and i have said yes.”
“what?”
“i said that jem proposed to me,” she whispered. “he asked if i would marry him. and i said i would.”
will had gone shockingly white. he said, “jem. my jem?”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch