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“Thành thật mà nói, cái tôi muốn không phải là hoàng hôn, mà là nụ cười em khi ngắm mặt trời lặn kia. Nếu tôi nói thế, biểu cảm nào sẽ hiện ra trên gương mặt nàng đây? Sẽ ra sao nếu tôi nói, khi em không ở bên, thậm chí những ngày vô vị những buổi chiều chẳng có mây cũng chẳng có mưa, chẳng có gì đặc biệt còn nhiều vô kể?

Nhưng đó là bí mật của riêng tôi. Bởi nếu thốt ra thành lời, chắc chắn ma thuật sẽ mất đi công lực.”
― Takuji Ichikawa, Thế Giới Kết Thúc Dịu Dàng Đến Thế

“Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock. The threads tighten slightly from Monday to Friday.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People