jen

“But holding Michael had always been like holding a little person, who knew that his feeding would end, who knew that if you were picked up you would be put down, that the comfort came but also went.”
― Adam Haslett, Imagine Me Gone

“The words Lafayette used to describe that triumph—“I did not hesitate to be disagreeable to preserve my independence”—applied to getting his way regarding America as well. Perhaps the most emblematic anecdote foretelling Lafayette’s stubborn refusal to give up his American dream was the boyhood story about how one day, one of his Parisian schoolteachers was talking up the virtues of an obedient horse. According to Lafayette, “I described the perfect horse as one which, at the sight of the whip, had the sense to throw his rider to the ground before he could be whipped.”
― Sarah Vowell, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

“Lia called her right before the lights went out. There’s that moment, you know, for most people, where you decide you want to wake up in the world one more day.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“There is a man who travels around the world trying to find places where you can stand still and hear no human sound. It is impossible to feel calm in cities, he believes, because we so rarely hear birdsong there. Our ears evolved to be our warning systems. We are on high alert in places where no birds sing. To live in a city is to be forever flinching.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation