Andrea

“She looked directly up into the northern lights and she wondered if those cold-burning spectres might not draw her breath, her very soul, out of her chest and into the stars.”
― Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

“Of all the conditions we experience, solitude is perhaps the most misunderstood.”
― Sarah Hall, How to Paint a Dead Man

“Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late—it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one. And what is this queer sensation that you’re a conspirator? Lightly, stealthily you move about your room. You take something off the dressing-table and put it down again without a sound. And everything, even the bedpost, knows you, responds, shares your secret…
You're not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You're in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–it's suddenly dear to you. It's a darling little funny room. It's yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things! Mine–my own!”
― Katherine Mansfield, At the Bay

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession