madelyn

“Being beautiful, was that for men?'
'Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“I thought I should rein my sadness in, keep it small, not let it surround me, or spread to my bloodstream or thereabouts. Turn it into a ball, bullet or pellet. Swallow it quick.”
― Mercè Rodoreda, La plaça del Diamant

“How do we move through all this beauty without destroying it?”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men