Joanne

“Through the wall Father Sisoy was snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had a sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Greatest Short Stories of Anton Chekhov

“it is good to know that real woods, even in England, hold very small areas that may not have changed since the wildwood. In leg-breaking gullies, on precipitous slopes, there are reservoirs of ancient vegetation perhaps a few feet square that have never been cleared. From here, lime seedlings or snake's-head fritillaries replenish the wood around. These too are doors.”
― Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading

“I do like my life. I flail for meaning sometimes, maybe too often, but it is a full life, and a life I own. I have learned this of myself, that I cannot do without people and I cannot do without stretches of sustained isolation. To be alone is not always to be lonely. Sometimes I withdraw for weeks merely to be with myself, and I sink into reading, my life’s great pleasure, and I think, and I enjoy the silence of my own musing.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dream Count

“No intelligent woman can trust that any man will protect her,”
― Isabel Allende, My Name Is Emilia del Valle