“I am always chasing my children. I remember feeling chased as a child, but I never remember my mother chasing me. Perhaps she did not. Perhaps this is why I am the person I turned out to be.”
― Brutes
― Brutes
“I sit on the edge of the bed, feeling the loneliness swell, not knowing whether it's pressing against me from the outside or growing from within. either way, it's inescapable, my oldest companion.”
― Happy Place
― Happy Place
“My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing one another so well you don’t need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.”
― Happy Place
― Happy Place
“After this, I sat on the floor of the kitchen and thought about Leah, about the shape of her feet and the way she spoke about her father, the special voice she used to talk to cats, her kind frown, her intonation, her fingernails. ... I thought about the day it first occurred to me that, should she die, there would be no one in the world I truly loved. ... Are you just now realising that people die, Leah had said to me when I voiced this thought, tucked up beside her on the sofa with my knees pressed tight into the backs of hers. Not people, I had said, just you.”
― Our Wives Under the Sea
― Our Wives Under the Sea
“I imagined them all thinking it was worth it. Telling me how much they loved me. All my life, when I thought of my future, that was what I pictured. Not a career. The things I thought would come with it. Happiness, love, safety. And that dream had been enough for a long time. What was school if not a chance to earn your worth? To prove, again and again, that you were measurably good. One more deal I struck with a disinterested universe: If I'm good enough, I'll be happy. I'll be loved. I'll be safe.”
― Happy Place
― Happy Place
Nelli’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Nelli’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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