mwaka!

“Mr Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that couldn’t be continued. He told the Mother he’d searched and searched and found nothing like that. But I believe now he was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

“But sometimes a person’s brain starts cycling. No matter what you do, the same thoughts just keep repeating, over and over. You get stuck in a loop, and when you’re inside that loop, you can’t see past it. You’ll keep coming up with the same possibilities, to no end, because the answers you need—they’re outside the loop. Distractions aren’t just distractions. Sometimes they can break you out of the loop.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“Sometimes you have an idea of a person — about who they are, about what you'd be like together. But sometimes that's all that it is: an idea. And for so long, I have been afraid that I loved the idea of Emily more than I will ever be capable of loving anyone real.”

He looked at me like the act of doing so was painful and sweet. “It was never just the idea of you, Avery.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“It was good to see you again, Lemon," before he slipped out of the conference room, and I was left, staring after him.”
― Ashley Poston, The Seven Year Slip