Autumn

“She says she can’t talk,” Svetlana told me. “She’s a botanist her name is Fernanda, so of course her nickname is Fern. It suits her because ferns are so mysterious and sort of elusive and ferns can survive anywhere.”
― Elif Batuman, The Idiot

“In the fall of 2017, we began to consider anew how violence, hate, and discrimination push people out, and how the stories we have are haunted by the ghosts of the stories we never got.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises

“Beautiful things don't ask for attention.”
― James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“As an evangelical teenager, I didn't trust my own mind, too afraid to sin. Straying too far away from the early Christian internet could lead to temptation, to lust, to anger, to doubt. Perpetually aware of my own failings and ever the budding perfectionist, I aspired to a nearly ascetic level of spiritual self-discipline, which was in fact self-denial. I believe that I had chosen my faith for myself, not realizing that I had been conditioned all my life to be the ideal, obedient subject.”
― Jeanna Kadlec, Heretic: A Memoir