Henry

“He was so scared of what she wanted to say to him - that she had discovered his true being: that all he hid had been uncovered. That his mother had somehow found a mouth into his world and learned what he was. Not a boy anymore, or even a person.”
― B.R. Yeager, Amygdalatropolis

“maybe questions don’t stem from interest in the other person so much as curiosity about the lives we might have led”
― Hanna Bervoets, We Had to Remove This Post

“Here finally Kant perceives the true rift between them: Julian doesn't know the difference between embarrassment and shame. How shame soaks, stains, leaves a skidmark on everything and when it has nothing to stick to, spreads until it does. Embarrassment is contained by incidents, gets funny and small over time; shame runs gangrene through the entire past, makes the future impossible. You can't own it or laugh it off, only try to bail it out in sloshing bucketfuls, drenching yourself in the process. Embarrassment is an event, shame a condition, one that Julian has somehow either mastered or never experienced, which explains why he's so easygoing, and why, to him, the world is so tractable, why all seems fixable with talk. What's inside Julian is smooth and fragrant, his desires desirable, and so his words are gift wrap, sometimes sloppy but always appreciated. Whereas if Kant ever relaxes his vigilance, allows his own sick and malign requirements to escape through the candor of voice or touch, they could never be recontained.”
― Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection

“The theater hums with presence as everyone in the audience and cast alike remembers that joy and grief are human birthrights, but mostly, being alive, is everything in between.”
― Emily Habeck, Shark Heart