Ellen Modlin

“I shall try to conjure up each of the sentences engraved in my memory which were either so unbearable or so comforting to me at the time that the mere thought of them today engulfs me in a wave of horror or sweetness.”
― Annie Ernaux, Happening

“From the very beginning, and throughout the whole of our affair, I had the privilege of knowing what we all find out in the end: the man we love is a complete stranger.”
― Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

“I experienced pleasure like a future pain.”
― Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

“It all began with Adam. He was the first man to tell a joke--or a lie. How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before. Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant.
- Notebook, 1867”
― Mark Twain