Bard Ampora

“rather because I didn't know her, not really, until I did. She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood - a flood of what I realized I did not know. Afterward I would mourn her as if she'd died, because something had: someone we created together.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“Snowdrifts turning the nuances of nature into bumps, reminding us to keep perspective, reminding us that everything has a season, reminding us that time passes and so will we, one day.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

“Later, you will learn that a common feature of domestic abuse is "dislocation." That is to say, the victim has just moved somewhere new or she's somewhere where she doesn't speak the language, or has been otherwise uprooted from her support network, her friends or family, her ability to communicate. She is made vulnerable by her circumstance, her isolation. Her only ally is her abuser, which is to say she has no ally at all.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“The Gothic heroine tries to convince herself that her suspicions are unfounded, that, since she loves him, he must be trustworthy and that she will have failed as a woman if she does not implicitly believe in him.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House