baylee

“What is it people encounter in their stark and solitary four a.m. self? What is inside them? Not politics. There are no politics inside of people. The truth of a person, under all the layers and guises, the significations of group and type, the quiet truth, underneath the noise of opinions and “beliefs,” is a substance that is pure and stubborn and consistent. It is a hard, white salt. This salt is the core. The four a.m. reality of being. When I came to understand this, it was literally four a.m. and I was staring at an actual mountain of salt.”
― Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

“Mircea asked Nate what he liked most about America, and Nate had trouble coming up with a definitive list.
"Most people say the freedoms," Mircea said. "But what is freedom exactly?
What happens when one person's freedom infringes on another's?”
― Weike Wang, Rental House

“But in the muck—with salamanders, fairies, and dragons—I am coming to understand, in a visceral way, that being grounded is not a punishment; it is a privilege. The dark recesses of this planet are not hell; they are home.”
― Leigh Ann Henion, Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark

“But whether people cultivate an exterior meant to signal their politics, or they cultivate, instead, a strait-laced appearance that does not signal their politics, their self-representation is deliberate. It is meant to reinforce who they are (who they consider themselves to be).”
― Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake