Speckeh

“I must beg your forgiveness, Father. For years I hated you for leaving me here alone. I told myself you'd got the death you deserved. That's why I never came to see you. Forgive me.'

My father never liked tears. He thought a man never cried for others, only for himself. And if he did cry, he was a coward and deserved no pity. I didn't want to cry for my father and betray him yet again.

'I would have liked you to have seen my name in a book, even if you couldn't read it. I would have liked you to have been here with me, to see that your son is managing to get on in life and has been able to do things that you were never allowed to do. I would have likd to have known you, Father, and for you to have known me. I turned you into a stranger in order to forget you and now I'm the stranger.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game

“When we die, our bodies will be scattered in the heavens as two constellations... And no one will have known happiness like ours.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“How to read her coldness: She is preoccupied. She is unhappy. She is unhappy with you. You did something and now she’s unhappy, and you need to find out what it is so she will stop being unhappy. You talk to her. You are clear. You think you are clear. You say what you are thinking and you say it after thinking a lot, and yet when she repeats what you’ve said back to you nothing makes sense. Did you say that? Really? You can’t remember saying that or even thinking it, and yet she is letting you know that it was said, and you definitely meant it that way.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“Very prudent and very bourgeois. But you don't win a game by hitting the balls out of court. Why would you say that so many different beliefs have appeared and disappeared throughout history?'

'I don't know. Social, economic, or political factors, I suppose. You're talking to someone who left school at the age of ten. History has never been my strong point.'

'History is biology's dumping ground, Martin.'

'I think I wasn't in school the day that lesson was taught.'

'This lesson is not taught in classrooms, Martin. It is taught through reason and the observation of reality. This lesson is the one nobody wants to learn and is therefore the one we must examine carefully in order to be able to do our work. All business opportunities stem from someone else's inability to resolve a simple and inevitable problem.'

'Are we talking about religion or economics?'

'You choose the label.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game