Andrew Clark

“He’d heard people say talk was cheap, but that wasn’t true. Talk was magic, it turned the world, it was power when you knew how to fuse it with what mattered and pull your actions taut inside it like arrows.”
― Carolina De Robertis, The President and the Frog

“My last image of Cambodia was of darkness, it was the sound of nearly forty mute wanderers, of silent prayers. I closed my eyes.

My father told my Hanuman had crossed the ocean, how he had gone into another life. Look back, my mother said, one last time. I follwed through our twilit apartment, walked in the shade of my father, past bare walls and open windows, the noise of the street pouring in. Between us, she said, I had known love, I had lived a childhood that might sustain me.

I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorize it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter. I felt her in the persistent drumming of water against the boat's hull.

Guard the ones you love, she told me. Carry us with you into the next life.”
― Madeleine Thien, Dogs at the Perimeter

“Most of the night is a blur.
What I remember: everything is loud and fast and thrilling.
What I remember: the three of us dancing, jumping around and twisting our bodies with abandon. The reflections of the disco ball like a million pieces of colored glass.
What I remember: Shawn coming up behind me, his sweaty skin sliding against mine, his voice low in my ear, Baby.
What I remember: Annie, laughing, pulling me onto the dance floor and spinning me around like I was the girl.
What I remember: feeling breathless and joyous and invincible. We loved the city, we loved each other.”
― Carter Sickels, The Prettiest Star

“For kindness begins where necessity ends.”
― Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway