Mary

“Sometimes love does not have the most honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in half. It’s everything in between we live for.”
― Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

“A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“Women are so careful with each other’s feelings. We know the world shoots poison daggers into our egos—and we shoot them into ourselves—and so we rush to each other’s sides for triage: Yes, you were fine last night; yes, you are perfect exactly as you are. (Classic Onion headline: Female Friends Spend Raucous Night Validating the Living Shit Out of Each Other.) We become such reliable yes-women that any negative feedback is viewed as a betrayal, and the only place we feel comfortable being honest is behind each other’s back. Did you hear what she said last night? Did you see what she wore? These are the paths of least resistance—the unswerving praise, the gossip dressed up as maternal concern—and it can be very tricky to break rank and say, out loud, to each other: No, you weren’t fine at all.”
― Sarah Hepola, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget

“First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven