Ellen X.

“Keep putting love out into the world and it will come back to you in one way or another.”
― Dolly Alderton, Dear Dolly

“They went to a protest against the war in Gaza the other week with Connell and Niall. There were thousands of people there, carrying signs
and megaphones and banners. Marianne wanted her life to mean something then, she wanted to stop all violence committed by the strong against the weak, and she remembered a time several years ago when she had felt so
intelligent and young and powerful that she almost could have achieved such a thing, and now she knew she wasn’t at all powerful, and she would live and die in a world of extreme violence against the innocent, and at most she could help only a few people. It was so much harder to reconcile herself to the idea of helping a few, like she would rather help no one than do something so small and feeble, but that wasn’t it either. The protest was very loud and slow, lots of people were banging drums and chanting things out of unison, sound systems crackling on and off. They marched across O’Connell Bridge with the Liffey trickling under them. The weather was hot, Marianne’s shoulders got sunburned.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“But most people in America, those who are fed and clothed and housed, can choose what to care about. From your comfortable position you can decide if you want to know about people in Syria or Myanmar, with the flip of a television switch.”
― Rachel Khong, Real Americans

“Maybe you and this guy are meant to be with each other for a year, or five years, or a handful of months. That’s fine! That can still be a successful relationship! You will still have an opportunity to grow together, to enrich each other and teach each other and make some beautiful (or even just fun) memories together. You don’t have to wait for a precise moment when you know you will only be with each other for ever and ever, because otherwise you may not ever be with each other. Ask yourself which is the greater loss: having tried to be with someone you deem to be perfect and at some point breaking up or never having tried to be with them at all?”
― Dolly Alderton, Dear Dolly: Collected Wisdom