Gertie

“She knows there are traps everywhere that can make her cry, she knows the way she dies a little every time someone asks her for change and she doesn't give it to them means that she's too soft for this world or perhaps just for this city, she feels so small here.”
― Emily St. John Mandel

“Country’s friggin’ dying, man, you have to triage the motherfucker.”
― Jess Row, The Empties

“She said being human is being a young child on Christmas Day who receives an absolutely magnificent castle. And there is a perfect photograph of this castle on the box and you want more than anything to play with the castle and the knights and the princesses because it looks like such a perfectly human world, but the only problem is that the castle isn’t built. It’s in tiny intricate pieces, and although there’s a book of instructions you don’t understand it. And nor can your parents or Aunt Sylvie. So you are just left, crying at the ideal castle on the box which no one would ever be able to build”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“Dinner that evening is a simple affair: canned peaches and cold canned chili and half an apple each.”
― J.D. Palmer, The Meek