Nona Williams

“I realise that what seems to matter so much to us in the here and now is nothing in comparison to the sea and the rocks and the turning of the tides; we’re just tiny grains in the sands of time.”
― Ruth Saberton, The Letter

“Mirror-touch synesthesia. My brain re-creates the sensory experiences of living creatures, of all people and even sometimes animals; if I see it I feel it, and for just a moment I am them, we are one and their pain or pleasure is my own. It can seem like magic and for a long time I thought it was, but really it’s not so far removed from how other brains behave: the physiological response to witnessing someone’s pain is a cringe, a recoil, a wince. We are hardwired for empathy.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves

“Libertarians fantasize that they’re action heroes and entirely self-made. They tend to exempt themselves from the truism that there but for the grace of God goes each one of them, because an implicit premise of their ultra-individualism is that anybody in America can make it on their own and that unfair disadvantages either don’t exist or can’t be helped. I have a hunch that the demographic profile of self-identified libertarians—94 percent white, 68 percent male, 62 percent in their forties or younger—has something to do with those beliefs and fantasies.”
― Kurt Andersen, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

“Elected officials who believe their own political survival is more important than anything else threaten the survival of our republic, no matter what they tell themselves to justify their cowardice.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning