Meadow

“She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn't do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Her spirit still had flesh to house it. Like the remaining section of a ruined brick wall, which the bombing had not managed to destroy completely, since moved and incorporated into another structure – from which the blood has been washed clean. Flesh which was now no longer young. As she walked she imitated the steady gait of one who had never been broken. A clean cloth veiling each unstitched place. Doing without farewells, without mourning. If she believes that she has never been shattered, she can believe that she will be shattered no more. And so, there are a few things left to her: To stop lying. To (open her eyes and) remove the veil. To light a candle for all the deaths and spirits she can remember – including her own.”
― Han Kang, The White Book

“Being able to see; being able to hold a book; being able to turn its page; being able to maintain a reading posture; being able to go to a bookshop to buy a book - I loathed the exclusionary machismo of book culture that demanded that its participants meet these five criteria of able-bodiedness. I loathed, too, the ignorant arrogance of all those self-professed book-lovers so oblivious to their privilege.”
― Saou Ichikawa, Hunchback

“Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again”
― Homer, The Iliad