Bea

“It must be strange to come upon a highway when you're a woodland creature. When there are woods on either side of a road, that road is inside a forest. It doesn't feel that way when you're driving, but if we were birds looking down, it would be clear that trees were cut down to pave a street. Geographically and ecologically, the habitat that the road is in is a forest. When raccoons or deer turn into roadkill, it's not because they went somewhere they shouldn't have. It's because there was an unnatural street in their woods.”
― Emily R. Austin, We Could Be Rats

“Like little pieces of me keep chipping away, bit by bit, and each time something goes, that version of me dies. Sometimes it’s big things that do it. Sometimes it’s small, stupid things. A dead great-aunt. A leaky roof. Exile. Ugly posters at the pub. Lost magic. A fight with a friend. It’s like the world gets just a little less magical each time, and I get a little smaller. And every time I close my eyes, there’s a huge, dark emptiness where the stars are supposed to be.”
― Sangu Mandanna, A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

“Their unwavering hope for the future hand in hand with the desolation of their past. That, Luke could understand. History was how he made sense of the world, after all, and what was history if not a collection of stories to make the incomprehensible comprehensible?”
― Sangu Mandanna, A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

“Friends, distinct from parents, do not expect us to live out their hopes at once for us. With friends, distinct from spouses, we're not shackled with the insurmountable expectation of being someone’s everything, their puzzle piece to completeness. And distinct from our children, we aren't the sole propagator of our friends’ survival. Our ancestors lived in tribes, where responsibility for one another was diffused among many. Friendship, then, is a rediscovery of an ancient truth we've long buried: it takes an entire community for us to feel whole.”
― Marisa G. Franco, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends