twobooksinthebox

“Girls in those stories are always victims, and I am not. And it doesn’t have anything to do with what Strane did or didn’t do to me when I was younger. I’m not a victim because I never wanted to be, and If I didn’t want to be, then I’m not. That’s how it works. The difference between rape and sex is state of mind. You can’t rape the willing, right?”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

“She pressed her cheek against his heart and lay there, grateful for the time she’d had with him, however short or long it had been, grateful she had known him, grateful that once, when she was young, she had experienced a love so strong that it did not go away, that decades and distance and miles and children and lies and letters could never make it disappear. She held him in her arms and said to him all she needed to say.”
― Marjan Kamali, The Stationery Shop

“..how hard it is to keep alive someone who doesn't want to stay alive. First you try logic ("You have so much to live for"), and then you try guilt ("You owe me"), and then you try anger, and threats, and pleading ("I'm old; don't do this to an old man"). But then, once they agree, it is necessary that you, the cajoler, move into the realm of self-deception, because you can see that it is costing them, you can see how much they don't want to be here..”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I think you actually have to have all of your dreams come true to realize they are the wrong dreams.”
― Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing