Helena

“What she craved and really felt herself entitled to was a situation in which the noblest attitude should also be the easiest.”
― Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

“Explore me,' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I’m free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon’s wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

“Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone has said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shift of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

“Isn't it natural that I should belittle all the things I can't offer you?”
― Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth