Melissa

“My attachment to books is sensual as well as intellectual. A friend of mine once broke my concentration to remark that I will caress a book as I read along. I hadn't noticed but it's true: my hands move constantly over the pages. I love to hold them, feel them. I love the way books smell. I will fold a paperback in two and break the spine. I will bend the spine of a hardback, felling the turned page rend just enough until it rest loosely in position.”
― James J. Patterson, A Secret Woman: A Novel

“You could’ve told me. I’m not a crier.” This is the whoppiest lie I’ve told in my life.”
― Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

“And then I just studied the praying mantis for a while. I watched her move her head around and rub her hands together like she was a villain with an evil plan to take over the universe. I decided to name her Melissa.”
― Xhenet Aliu, Domesticated Wild Things and Other Stories

“With each mile we put behind us, I felt the air grow lighter in my lungs. It was as if the city had been one large pressure cooker, simmering in its own juices. With the top down on the coupe and a stalwart, man-made breeze blowing steadily in my face, I tallied the city's many summertime brutalities: the heat that radiated from the gray asphalt and made the air dance in wavy shimmers; the stagnant ponds in Central Park that turned a milky, putrid, almost phosphorescent green and incubated countless mosquitoes; the blasts of hot dirty air that breathed upward from every subway grate; oh, and how the loud noises pouring from construction sites even somehow seemed to further agitate and heat the air!”
― Suzanne Rindell, The Other Typist