Michaela

“It’s freedom, she says. It’s poverty, Charlie says. Poverty is always for free.”
― Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier

“The fear of turning into our parents, she said, is what turns us into our fucking parents.”
― Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier

“It seemed very remarkable that you could travel halfway around the world and still end up looking at some ducks.”
― Elif Batuman, The Idiot

“...The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moment before everything fell apart. The second before the crash, the ice-cream in the gas station just before the accident, the last swim on holiday before we came home and received the diagnosis. Our memories always force us back to those very best moments, night after night, prompting the questions: "Could I have done anything differently? Why did I just go around being happy? If only I'd known what was going to happen, could I have stopped it?"...Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward. When a child is born, its parents dream of it being as unique as possible, until it gets ill, when suddenly all they want is for everything to be normal.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown