Adeline Shen

“That's the thing with a diary, though. In order to record your life, you sort of need to live it. Not at your desk, but beyond it. Out in the world where it's so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.”
― David Sedaris, Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

“P198 Describe John Moore’s brother’s death: but at heart I believe now, as I believed then, that it was essentially the result of growing up in a household, and a world, where emotional expression of any kind was at best frowned on and at worst strangled. Unfortunately, I’d stated this opinion during the funeral, and was nearly forced into an asylum as a result.”
― Caleb Carr, The Alienist

“most men consider their rationally selected actions are in fact idiosyncratic responses that have grown strong enough, through repeated use, to overpower other urges and reactions—that have won, in other words, the mental battle for survival.”
― Caleb Carr, The Alienist

“The Roosevelts’ social activities compared favorably with those of Winston Churchill, except that while the Roosevelts associated mostly with politicians, high-ranking administrators, and wealthy swells, the Churchill’s world was composed of princes, dukes, counts, and other powerful men who’d make fortunes from the British Empire.
Both lives contrasted markedly with the social scene in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, where there were no royals, elected legislators, or wealthy swells, because the Communists had killed them all.”
― Winston Groom, The Allies: Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II