Tom Morton

“You hear the expression empty nest and imagine the downy expanse of it, the absence of cheeping, maybe the bird pair connecting more intimately, what with nobody barging in at midnight needing either of them to read an email to their history teacher or inspect a weird freckle that turns out to be Magic Marker. But often an empty nest is two birds looking at each other, shell-shocked and nostalgic, over the single worm they’re now splitting for dinner, discussing what to do with the worm leftovers.”
― Catherine Newman, Sandwich

“Asya, my grandmother said, don’t complicate the point. We named you after a whole continent and you’re filming a park.”
― Aysegül Savas, The Anthropologists

“Polly, she stabbed you with a fork today. She’s not giving you her baby.”
― Freida McFadden, The Crash

“If I woke in the night and heard footsteps in the hall, I would not immediately assume it was an ostrich. Why would I? Ostriches are things that happen to other people, far away, in countries more Serengeti-adjacent. If you want to tell me your saga of your encounter with an ostrich, I will listen appreciatively, but it’s just not something I worry about happening to me.”
― T. Kingfisher, What Feasts at Night