Emma

“More was expected of her, her usual engagement replete with queries and analysis and a kind of domestication of the topic so that it became like a furry pet with a life of its own, all of which he had come to depend on. The way a cat depends on your petting when it puts. The purring forces you to keep petting. Even after you’re tired. Even after you want to move on. Veblen has been detained countless hours in neighborhood walks, not sure when to break away, by purring cats.”
― Elizabeth Mckenzie, The Portable Veblen

“For girls, becoming women was inevitability; for boys, becoming men was ambition.”
― Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire

“Think of everything cliché you know about the 1950s: housewives spent their days vacuuming with martinis in hand and a look of existential horror in their eyes, and every home was outfitted with a TV set.”
― Tori Telfer, Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History

“You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren't always the most reliable thing.”
― Lily King, Euphoria