angela !!!

“But we are going to do an extraordinary thing together. Do you know what it is we are doing? I will tell you, so that later, you cannot say I deceived you. We are taking your will out of your jaw—for that is where the will sits—and pressing it very small between our two hands, like a bit of dough. We are rolling it, and squeezing it, until it gets very small. Small enough to fit into the eye of a needle which is hidden inside of an egg, which is hidden inside a hen, which is hidden inside a goose, which is hidden inside a deer. When we are finished you will give your will to me, and I will keep it safe for you. I am very good at this thing. A savant, you might say.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Why is it that I find it difficult to accept the present moment, whole as an apple, without cutting and hacking at it to find a purpose, or setting it up on a shelf with other apples to measure its worth or trying to pickle it in brine to preserve it, and crying to find it turns all brown and is no longer simple the lovely apple I was given in the morning?”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“If something is worth dying for, then you've got a reason to live.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“What you make from a tree should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory