mad mags

“I have more tools now than ever, and that helps, but sometimes the only thing that I accomplish in a day is just surviving. It’s both an amazing achievement and also tinged with shame, as you see others who seem to whiz past you as you barely tread water. Maybe they’re treading water too. You can’t tell. You’re just trying to breathe.”
― Jenny Lawson, Broken

“It’s exhausting always having to be aware of whether you’re being too much yourself for other people’s comfort.”
― Sonora Reyes, The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School

“You don’t get it. He cut all the way through my cheek to the inside of my mouth.”
“But you’re alive. And I love you.”
“Say that when the bandages come off,” she said in her dull, doped-up voice. “I make the Bride of Frankenstein look like Liz Taylor.”
I took her hand. “I read something once—”
“I don’t think I’m quite ready for a literary discussion, Jake.”
She tried to turn away again, but I held onto her hand. “It was a Japanese proverb. ‘If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples.’ I’ll love your face no matter what it looks like. Because it’s yours.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“I COME FROM THE belly of the snake. The dark side of the moon. From my grandmother’s gin still: juniper berries, coriander, orrisroot. I leave a bitter taste on your tongue.”
― Jennifer McMahon, The Children on the Hill