Emily

“He hadn’t been able to love her, his soft round wife with her wavy golden hair and ruddy cheeks, the product falsely advertised by the thin, hollow-cheeked woman in their wedding photo, and he hated that John hadn’t minded at all, that his fat wife and his fat son had adored each other, had even sometimes been happy in spite of the cold, looming presence of his martyred disapproval.”
― Gretchen Felker-Martin, Cuckoo

“The girl noticed her eyes. They seemed kind to her, despite the woman's rough look. Out of nowhere, she wanted the woman to hold her. It had been so long since she had smelled a woman's skin that even a dirty woman's embrace would have been welcome. She was still disturbed by the sight of the dead young nuns near the hospital and she wanted a woman to hold her and tell her that the whole world didn't yet belong to Death, masculine Death with his hourglass and his holes for eyes. Death with his bony arms that only embraced to take you away, like a lamb from the market. Like the pig on La Bucherie. How did Heaven come into all of this? Heaven was life, not death. Heaven was a woman holding your head in the crook of her arm and looking down at you. Heaven was a warm hand on your cheek and the smell of soup with garlic on the fire.
How could people enjoy anything in heaven with their noses rotted off and their ears full of mud and worms, and no cheeks, and no hands to lay on cheeks?”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires

“A dark-haired little boy just in pants stood bewildered near the blaze, saying, as if there had been some mistake, "We live here. We live here.”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires

“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves