Antonia

“She felt almost guilty that she had handed some of her grief to him, and then she felt close to him for his willingness to take it and hold it, in all its rawness, all its dark confusion.”
― Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn

“In English, consciousness and unconsciousness are part of a vertical plane, so that we wake up ↑ and we fall ↓ asleep and we sink ↓ into a coma. Chinese uses the horizontal line, so that to wake is to cross a border towards consciousness → and to faint is to go back ← . Meanwhile, time itself is vertical so that last year is “the year above” ↑ and next year is “the year below” ↓. The day before yesterday is the day “in front” ↑ and the day after tomorrow is the day “behind” ↓. This means that future generations are not the generations ahead, but the ones behind. Therefore, to look into the future one must turn around...”
― Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

“My favourite part of the gospels was in Matthew, when Jesus said: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. I shared in this desire for moral superiority over my enemies. Jesus always wanted to be the better person, and so did I. I underlined this passage in red pencil several times, to illustrate that I understood the Christian way of life.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“Stark im Ei!”
― Benedict Wells, Vom Ende der Einsamkeit