Sally Whitehead

“This was a different Sally than Jo had first been presented with: the one with the carefully pencilled lips and brows, the modern Marlene Dietrich. With her make-up on, Sally could pass for being still in her twenties, perhaps only a little older than Jo. At a generous guess, she was about five and a half feet tall—if you counted her customary six-inch heels. But now, without her make-up and stilettos, Sally looked small, thin-lipped, and cynical. Jo decided that she liked this Sally better.”
― Elle Wild, Strange Things Done

“He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did.
What he did was put the fear of God into them.
More precisely, the fear of Crowley.
In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend," he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it. . . "
Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat.
The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.”
― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“We exist as long as somebody remembers us.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“You have a pet theory, one you have been turning over for years, that life itself is a kind of Rube Goldberg device, an extremely complicated machine designed to carry out the extremely simple task of constructing your soul.”
― Kevin Brockmeier, The View from the Seventh Layer