Ray Flores

“There’s often a misconception that to be well-loved, the love has to come from multiple sources, when truthfully, one or two people can love you with the strength of ten.”
― Jessica George, Maame

“You can’t count a hundred years on your own, of course. But there are two of us. If we each count fifty years, then together, we can live alongside one another for a hundred years. So please promise me that we’ll be together for the next one hundred years. And that we’ll celebrate our golden anniversary by having a dance, just like we are right now. Can you promise me this?”
― Takuya Asakura, The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop

“The sadness will last forever. It wasn’t a lie. There was sadness, and there was despair, and there was pain—but there was also laughter, and joy, and relief. There was never grief without love or love without grief, and I chose to think that my aunt lived because of them.”
― Ashley Poston, The Seven Year Slip

“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