Emma

“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

“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

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune