Maria Otto

“I’m sorry, he said. I’m just finding you kind of hostile. You’re interpreting your failure to hurt me as hostility on my part, I said. That’s interesting.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“You underestimate your own power so you don’t have to blame yourself for treating other people badly. You tell yourself stories about it. Oh well, Bobbi’s rich, Nick’s a man, I can’t hurt these people. If anything they’re out to hurt me and I’m defending myself.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“Bobbi could be abrasive and unrestrained in a way that made people uncomfortable,”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“I wasn’t used to being attacked like this and it was frightening. I thought of myself as an independent person, so independent that the opinions of others were irrelevant to me. Now I was afraid that Nick was right. I isolated myself from criticism so I could behave badly without losing my sense of righteousness.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends