Camilla Hect

“Look around you and look at yourself: the world is swarming with assassins, that is, people who allow themselves to forget those they claimed to love. To forget someone: have you really thought about what that means? Forgetfulness is a gigantic ocean where only one ship sails, the ship of memory. For most human beings, that ship is no more than a miserable tub which takes on water at the slightest opportunity.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Hygiène de l'assassin

“When you aren't sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself; that's the basic principle of every faith.”
― Alberto Moravia, The Time of Indifference

“You looked at them and wondered why the were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The mast had said, "You are ugly people." They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance. "Yes," they had said. "You are right.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes.”
― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea