Alicia

“That’s the problem with grief. It’s not packed tidily in a box that you can bring out in appropriate, private moments and sort through. It’s threaded inconveniently through everything.”
― Emma Grey, The Last Love Note

“Joan was always curious what it was like on the inside of a marriage. What happened when it was just the two of them at home, Duke and Kris? Did she have to ask him for permission to buy new clothes? Did he sometimes tell her he didn’t like what she made for dinner? Joan tried to ward off the sadness that always came when she pictured a marriage—any marriage. Her parents’ marriage seemed fine to her. Good, even. They still loved each other. Her mother, basically a vegetarian, made her father’s favorite meatloaf most weekends with a joy that Joan had scrutinized for years but found completely sincere. Still, when she thought about it, a gloom dared to take over. You could develop your personality your entire life—pursue the things you wanted to learn, discover the most interesting parts of yourself, hold yourself to a certain standard—and then you marry a man and suddenly his personality, his wants, his standards subsume your own? Joan knew that society was changing and some men were changing with it. Some of them now understood that a woman’s career, her life, her passions were just as important as their own. But still, all Joan could think was that it was now just two people cutting off parts of themselves to make themselves fit together. A world of vegetarians cooking meatloaf.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere

“His absence will be the eternal backdrop to everything else I do until the day I die.”
― Emma Grey, The Last Love Note

“Well, we are the stars", Joan said. "And the stars are us. Every atom in our bodies was once out there. Was once a part of them. To look at the night sky is to look at pars of who you once were, who you may one day be.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere