Mary Catherine

“The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“To see someone you love, in a bad setting, is one of the great barometers of gratitude.”
― Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

“The mother of the heating contractor does not
Have the same problem as the mother of the poet.
When the mother of the heating contractor talks about her son
It's usually understood, from the beginning, that her son,
The heating contractor, is not pretending to be a heating contractor.”
― Matt Cook, The Unreasonable Slug

“Like Jordan Baker, people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem