Stella

“I used to think it was vital to know things, to feel safe in the learning and recounting of facts. I used to think it was possible to know enough to escape from the panic of not knowing, but I realise now that you can never learn enough to protect yourself, not really.”
― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

“However, no matter how much of the burden of the child’s task one carries, the child is still an independent individual. Children do not become what their parents want them to become. In their choices of university, place of employment, and partner in marriage, and even in the everyday subtleties of speech and conduct, they do not act according to their parents’ wishes. Naturally, the parents will worry about them, and probably want to intervene at times. But, as I said earlier, other people are not living to satisfy your expectations.”
― Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

“I'm going to love these discarded Americans, even though they're useless and unattractive. That is going to be my work of art.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.”
― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea