James

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“But we remembered, you and I. It saddened me. Who would speak of these things when we were gone? So, too, must the makers of those distant fires have asked themselves as they fought the fading of their world. I began to wish that I could pour our memories into the water we carried, so that anyone drinking might see how it had been.”
― Téa Obreht, Inland

4 likes

“Eventually, my grandfather said:
- You must understand, this is one of those moments.
- What moments?
- One of those moments you keep to yourself.
…The story of this war… that belongs to everyone… But something like this— this is yours. It belongs only to you. And me. Only to us.”
― Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

tags: appreciation, beautiful-moments, beauty-in-time, instance, meaningful-moments, moments, time

9 likes

“There was a pause, then more words appeared—words I hadn’t known I needed to hear, but once I saw them, I realized I’d been searching my whole life for them. You were my child. I should have protected you. I lived a lifetime in the moment I read those lines, a life that was not the one I had actually lived. I became a different person, who remembered a different childhood. I didn’t understand the magic of those words then, and I don’t understand it now. I know only this: that when my mother told me she had not been the mother to me that she wished she’d been, she became that mother for the first time.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

121 likes

“There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

1573 likes

“The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.

Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't.”
― Kenneth Oppel, The Nest

tags: illness, mental-illness, normal, ocd, perfect, perfection, sickness

20 likes

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