Ali Self

“not a messy anatomical chest full of longing. Full of blood and beating and grief.”
― Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things

“It’s occurring to me only now that the dying and the loss are actually two different burdens, and each must be borne individually, one after the other. It’s like after a grueling delivery, when they hand it to you and you’re like, Oh! The baby! because your focus had become so narrow and personal during the birth. But now here was the actual end point, which you’d”
― Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things

“Mostly," she says, "I'm just really, really thirsty." The body and its petty demands! Grief is crashing over our heads like a tsunami, this miraculous soul is about to be homeless, but thirst is thirst. So I fill her night - this one, beautiful night, the only here and now we've ever got - with Sprite.”
― Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things

“I just mean that Edith doesn’t want to die—she’s not fully at peace with the idea—so she might not come to anything that feels satisfying. She might not make meaning of her life and death. She might, of course. I mean, we always hope for that because it makes us feel better. But she might not.”
― Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things