Bard Ampora

“The Dream House was never just the Dream House. It was, in turn, a convent of promise (herb garden, wine, writing across the table from each other), a den of debauchery (fucking with the windows open, waking up with mouth on mouth, the low, insistent murmur of fantasy), a haunted house (none of this can really be happening), a prison (need to get out need to get out), and, finally, a dungeon of memory. In dreams it sits behind a green door, for reasons you have never understood. The door was not green.”
― 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

“It is not an extraordinary thing to claim that some people are more valuable than others to the world”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“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