Rachel

“After work, she wandered around the center of Baltimore, aimlessly, interested in nothing. Was this what the novelists meant by ennui?”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“Based on my own experience, I believe the brain is as soft and malleable as bread dough when we’re young. I am grateful for every class trip to the symphony I went on and curse any night I was allowed to watch The Brady Bunch, because all of it stuck. Conversely, I am now capable of forgetting entire novels that I’ve read, and I’ve been influenced not at all by books I passionately love and would kill to be influenced by. Think about this before you let your child have an iPad.”
― Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

“Parents and TV? They would watch at night. It’s weird, because I realize I had advantages my students didn’t. Like, before dinner, um, there was just this weird hour, late in the afternoon, when, you know, dinner was more or less simmering. And there’d be music on, and they’d be reading, and we’d be reading. We’d all sit around the living room, and we’d each be reading our own thing. And every once in a while, we’d talk about what we were reading. And I for a long time, I think, thought all families were like that. And didn’t realize that …”
― David Lipsky, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

“We are flying over a ball of fire.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend