a.

“Sometimes the people you loved left you halfway through a story. Sometimes they left you without a goodbye. And, sometimes, they stayed around in little ways. In the memory of a musical. In the smell of their perfume. In the sound of the rain, and the itch for adventure, and the yearning for that liminal space between one airport terminal and the next. I hated her for leaving, and I loved her for staying as long as she could. And I would never wish this pain on anyone.”
― Ashley Poston, The Seven Year Slip

“Reading lets us live in someone else’s shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface