Tina

“It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he used as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“The conversations that follow are gratifying for Connell, often taking unexpected turns and prompting him to express ideas he had never consciously formulated before. They talk about the novels he's reading, the research she studies, the precise historical moment that they are currently living in, the difficulty of observing such a moment in process. At times he has the sensation that he and Marianne are like figure-skaters, improvising their discussions so adeptly and in such perfect synchronisation that it suprises them both. She tosses herself gracefully into the air, and each time, without knowing how he's going to do it, he catches her.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Each city has its own romantic season. Once a year, a city's architectural, cultural and horticultural variables come into alignment with the solar course in such a way that men and women passing eachother in the thoroughfares few and unusual sense of romantic promise. Like Christmas time in Vienna, April in Paris and autumn in New York.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Lighting a match felt exciting and a little bit dangerous, and when the flame came into contact with the paper, it made a sound like the needle coming down on a record player—like the music was about to start.”
― Elif Batuman, The Idiot