Emer

“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first [met you]. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.”
― Ali Smith, Autumn

“Thinking yourself uniquely terrible is its own form of narcissism.”
― Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure

“I invite the confessionals of men. I am not a stranger to them. Absorbing the guilt and the sorrow is something the world expects of women.”
― Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure