Emily

“I wonder if maybe all you do is meet people & lose them & your smile fades the further you go because you have to carry the space they leave. Maybe it all turns to old pictures on a bookshelf, engaged rings, memories of sticking stars to a ceiling & maybe the space gets bigger & heavier every year.”
― Allison Larkin, The People We Keep

“To put it another way, every love relationship is based upon unwritten conventions rashly agreed upon by the lovers during the first weeks of their love. On the one hand, they are living a sort of dream; on the other, without realizing it, they are drawing up the fine print of their contracts like the most hard-nosed of lawyers. O lovers! Be wary during those perilous first days! If you serve the other party breakfast in bed, you will be obliged to continue same in perpetuity or face charges of animosity and treason!”
― Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

“Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“It’s a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers