Cécile

“A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“I had a room to myself as a kid, but my mother was always quick to point out that it wasn't my room, it was her room and I was merely permitted to occupy it. Her point, of course, was that my parents had earned everything and I was merely borrowing the space, and while this is technically true I cannot help but marvel at the singular damage of this dark idea: That my existence as a child was a kind of debt and nothing, no matter how small, was mine. That no space was truly private; anything of mine could be forfeited at someone else's whim.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“She had nothing. Except her music.”
― Grady Hendrix, We Sold Our Souls

“J'aimerais que mon père ait été un requin
Qui eût déchiré quarante baleiniers
(Et dans leur sang j'aurais appris à nager)”
― Heiner Müller, Hamletmachine and Other Texts for the Stage