Aliya

“Toddlers can make you feel as if you have violated some archaic law in their personal Koran and you should die, infidel.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Most people's intuitions are drowned out by folk sayings. We have a moment of real feeling or insight, and then we come up with a folk saying that captures the insight in a kind of wash. The intuition may be real and ripe, fresh with possibilities, but the folk saying is guaranteed to be a cliche, stale and self-contained.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“If people appeared to behave pointlessly in grief, it was only because human life was pointless, and this was the truth that grief revealed.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“So why does our writing matter, again?" they ask.
Because of the spirit, I say. Because of the heart. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird