Cait McKay

“Males always have something pathetic about them, at every age. A fragile arrogance, a frightened audacity. I no longer know, today, if they ever aroused in me love or only an affectionate sympathy for their weaknesses.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Lost Daughter

“It was in my nature to absorb large volumes of information during times of distress, like I could master the distress through intellectual dominance.”
― Sally Rooney, Mr Salary

“There’s a particular feeling in your body when something goes right after a long time of things going wrong. It feels warm and sweet and loose.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“Reader, do you remember that ridiculous movie Volcano, the one with Tommy Lee Jones? Do you remember how they stopped eruption in the middle of downtown Los Angeles? They diverted it with cement roadblocks and pointed fire hoses at it, and rerouted the lava to the ocean, and everything was fine? Sweet reader, that is not how lava works. Anyone can tell you that. Here is the truth: I keep waiting for my anger to go dormant, but it won’t. I keep waiting for someone to reroute my anger into the ocean, but no one can. My heart is closer to Dante’s Peak of Dante’s Peak. My anger dissolves grandmas in acid lakes and razes quaint Pacific Northwest towns with ash and asphyxiates jet engines with its grit. Lava keeps leaking down my slopes. You should have listened to the scientist. You should have evacuated earlier.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House