Kim Levin

“We can’t change the events of our lives. They happened, and there they are. But the lines we draw to connect those events, the shapes we make and the conclusions we reach, those come from us. They are our own design.”
― John Paul Brammer, ¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons

“life at its most complete and comfortable can feel like you’ve suddenly discovered yourself sous-viding in a plunge tub set exactly at your body temperature. One day the water’s no longer fine, which is when you crave a chill in your gut, a fresh sear on your chicken-tender ass, something to pep you the fuck up.”
― Chang-rae Lee, My Year Abroad

“She could clearly perceive the contours of her obsession with him. It would have been sensible to tear it from her skull, but the object had grown too large to be removed without splitting her head open. Despite its sick enormity, it was also too beautiful to her.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads

“An old lady wandered over, smiled wide, liver spots and hanging skin, like the earth was calling the flesh to be buried but her brain was too stubborn to cede it.”
― Chris Whitaker, We Begin at the End