Emily Mitchell

“He was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience. Jodie shunted him again but Mungo only grumbled and curled tighter around her. Her brother was her mother’s minor moon, her warmest sun, and at the exact same time, a tiny satellite that she had forgotten about. He would orbit her for an eternity, even as she, and then he, broke into bits.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“There’s this thing that happens, let’s say at school where a bunch of guys are in the bathroom, at the urinal, laughing about some dork that made an anus of himself in gym. You’re all basically nice guys, right? You know right from wrong, and would not in a million years be brutal to the poor guy’s face. And then it happens: the dork was in the shitter. He comes out of the stall with this look. He heard everything. And you realize you’re not really that nice of a guy. This is what I would say if I could, to all smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes: We are right here in the stall. We can actually hear you.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“My ideal man," Malak said ponderingly. "I'm not sure what that means. I don't want the ideal. I want complexity. I want passion. I want imperfection.

"My ideal man is not ideal. But," she said, leaning forward, "I'll tell you about him."

"I want him to have lunch at home. I want him to help me with my own mind. I want him to be bookish, wise, cunning, and exemplary. I want him to be a good storyteller, and always on my side."

"Yes, I want him to be near me. A good conversationalist, proud, not afraid of the lofty heights."

"I want him to be a singer, one who knows and loves a good song, can play an instrument, the oud or the ney, and preferably both. I want him to be a good mourner, know how to attend to the pain of others, a consoler who could assuage the grief I have for all those I loved and befriended and who are no longer here. I want him to be a healer, an expert in all that troubles me. I want him to be a fire that annihilates all danger that lies ahead and behind me and that which I have, somehow, without his help, found a way to avoid. I want him to be faithful---"

"Incapable of deception. I want him to be constant__"

"Constant in his love and in his prayers and, when those prayers are not answered, I want him to change reality with his own hands. I want him to be my lord-"

"For all the world to see. I want him to make me proud, to make vanish old and fresh longings, new and unremembered regrets. I want him to be vigilant-"

"To protect me from sorrows even once their great heights have passed. I want him to know how to deal with the past. I want him to be occasionally gripped by fear-"

"The fear of losing me. I want him to be patient, to help me to endure the injustices visited upon the houses of those I love. But I also want him to be impatient-"

"To lose all reason and hurry off, forgetting his shoes and hat, and ride-"

"His horse flanked by wings of angry dust, galloping, if need be, all night to find the traitorous, to change my fortunes and avenge me."

"And then I want him to return to me, to prosper by my side. I want to take him to the clearest stream, one only I know the way to, and there quench his thirst. I want him to look at me sometimes as if he does not know who I am. But I want to be forever recognized by him, come what may, to point me out in a crowd when, after the passage, we are reunited."


"I want him to see me when I cannot see myself.”
― Hisham Matar, My Friends

“Avery had previously thought love was built on large, visible gestures, but a marriage turned out to be the accrual of ordinary, almost inconsequential, acts of daily devotion—washing the mugs left in the sink before bed, taking the time to run up or downstairs to kiss each other quickly before one left the house, cutting up an extra piece of fruit to share—acts easy to miss, but if ever gone, deeply missed.”
― Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters