Bonnie

“One of Montaigne’s key instances is the story of Pomponius Atticus, a correspondent of Cicero’s. When Atticus fell ill, and medical attempts to prolong his existence merely prolonged his pain, he decided that the best solution was to starve himself to death. No need to petition a court in those days, citing the terminal deterioration in your “quality of life”: Atticus, being a Free Ancient, merely informed his friends and family of his intention, then refused food and waited for the end. In this, he was much confounded. Miraculously”
― Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened of

“think that for others in my family, who didn’t see him at the end, who didn’t witness his slow decline, he may live intact in memory, much as he was before his illness. I hope so. But that isn’t true for me. It was in part to exorcise my final haunting images of my father that I wanted to look at, to explain, the way he fragmented and lost himself in his illness; and who he was before”
― Sue Miller, The Story of My Father: A Memoir

“One of the things Jackson liked about Julia was her independence, one of the things he didn’t like about Julia was her independence.”
― Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn

“Nobody had warned her of this as a girl, when they carried on over her beautiful light complexion. How easily her skin would wear the mark of an angry man.”
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half