Jennifer

“When he saw her waiting for him at the gate: to encounter not only her, the beauty of her nearness renewed, but also himself, the self that is loved by her, and therefore worthy of his own respect.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can’t be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn’t their fault and it’s not yours either. You just needed something they didn’t have in them to give you.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“She touches his arm now and he feels himself almost angrily seizing at her, desperate, forceful, and in a thin fluttering voice she’s saying: Peter, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t helped you, I’ve made everything worse. I didn’t know what I was doing. Frightened she sounds: and he also is frightened. Clutching at her, her living body, he presses his face blindly into her hair. She has been cold, cruel, vain, yes, he thinks, she, Sylvia, she has lied to him, tried to manipulate him, she has made everything worse. And he too has been dishonest, cowardly, pretending to believe her lies, and his own. She has hated him all along for leaving her, he knows that, and he has hated her for telling him to go. I forgive you, he says. Do you forgive me? Hears the trembling little smile in her voice, answering: I forgive you, of course. Everything. I love you very much, and I forgive you, completely.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“I don't know why. It makes me depressed when I think about it. You have all these dreams that you're going to keep getting better and better. And then in reality you just start getting worse, and you don't even understand why.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo