Sarah left GR

“One afternoon in early August I was sitting in my backyard with a group of friends chatting over drinks, and one of them asked what was going on with me.

I imparted a few of my dating escapades from the weeks prior -- using all of the ridiculous monikers I'd given all my OkCupid paramours, like Weirdly-Obsessed-with-Sake Guy or Pretty-Sure-He-Hates-Me Guy.

She listened for a while, then said, "Okay, well, do you have any stories that don't revolve around looking for a man? Like, stories about other stuff you're doing with your life?"

Her message was clear. She thought I was better than this.

But I wasn't. I'm not.”
― Courtenay Hameister, Okay Fine Whatever: The Year I Went from Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things

“The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the symphony resounds, the seed germinates. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.”
― Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

“Outside, she thought that there ought to be a word for it: the air temperature that was perfectly neither hot nor cold. One degree lower, and she might have felt a faint misgiving about not having brought a jacket. One degree higher, and a skim of sweat might have glistened at her hairline. But at this precise degree, she required neither wrap nor breeze. Were there a word for such a temperature, there would have to be a corollary for the particular ecstasy of greeting it - the heedlessness, the needlessness, the suspended lack of urgency, as if time could stop, or should. Usually temperature was a battle; only at this exact fulcrum was it an active delight.”
― Lionel Shriver, The Post-Birthday World

“I renamed myself Ari.

If I switched the letter, my name was Air.

I thought it might be a great thing to be the air.

I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe