Catherine Carberry

“It was not the case that one thing morphed into another, child into woman. You remained the person you were before things happened to you. The person you were when you thought a small cut string could determine the course of a year. You also became the person to whom certain things happened. Who passed into the realm where you no longer questioned the notion of being trapped in one form. You took on that form, that identity, hoped for its recognition from others, hoped someone would love it and you.”
― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers

“Before I took to the road, a friend tried to get me to go to a department store with him. He said it was to improve the place where I lived. He said," I want to know you are reading beneath this lamp. " This fellow was dying. He knew it and I did not. I think he was tucking me in. He was making sure all of his friends had the right lamps, the comfiest pillows, the softest sheets. He was tucking us all in for the night.”
― Amy Hempel, The Collected Stories

“Hardly anyone about whom I deeply care at all resembles anyone else I have ever met, or heard of, or read about in literature.”
― Renata Adler, Speedboat

“125. Of course, you could just take off the blindfold and say, 'I think this game is stupid and I'm not playing it anymore.' And it must also be admitted that hitting the wall or wandering off in the wrong direction or tearing off the blindfold is as much a part of the game as is pinning the tail on the donkey.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets