Carmen

“There's no way out of this, it's stark: live or die. Every given moment a bubble that bursts. Step on, from one to the next, ever onwards, a rainbow of stepping stones, each bursting softly as your foot touches and passes on. Till one step finds only empty air. Till that step, live.”
― Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie

“I wonder how many ways there are for a mother to produce that wreckage in her own daughter, and my muscles tense as I think of them.”
― Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things

“...dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush.”
― Hannah Kent, Burial Rites

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas