Melissa

“So, imagine we’re all born with a set of feelings. Some are broader or deeper than others, but for everyone, there’s that ground floor, a bottom crust of the pie. That’s the maximum depth of feeling you’ve ever experienced. And then, the worst thing happens to you. The very worst thing that could have happened. The thing you had nightmares about as a child, and you thought, it’s all right because that thing will happen to me when I’m older and wiser, and I’ll have felt so many feelings by then that this one worst feeling, the worst possible feeling, won’t seem so terrible.

“But it happens to you when you’re young. It happens when your brain isn’t even fully done cooking—when you’ve barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you’ll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it doesn’t just stop at the bottom —it goes all the way down.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“To love, to forgive, to lose, to live - it was always a choice, and thus, the fact that he was a mortal was finally one worth celebrating. Because it would end! Maybe that was the entire secret, and therefore the whole thing was actually astonishingly simple. That over and over, he was presented with the same impossible decision - live and suffer, love and grieve - but still, every time, with all his being, his answer was and would always be yes. It would be difficult and painful, and however it ended, it would end - but still, he could choose it. To live, to love; it was always a choice, and inherently a brave one, to face down certain doo, with open arms.”
― Olivie Blake, Masters of Death

“The moment hung in time like a drop of honey from a spoon, heavy, golden.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“The world is full of cowards she thinks. And it turns out sometimes the opposite of cowardice is playfulness.”
― Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life