Ingrid

“Life is about deciding what matters. It's about the fantasy that determines the reality.”
― Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
― William James

“When you are the woman upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you “best of all.” It’s a small thing, you might think, and maybe it depends on your temperament, maybe for some people it’s a small thing, but for me […]”
― Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

“My motivation, even in anticipated shame, lay always in others. You can take the woman out of the upstairs, but you can't take the upstairs out of her.”
― Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs