bailey

“No one had ever told her this basic fact: Not everyone got to be loved. It was like those stupid bell curves they had to study in math class. There was the big, swollen, happy middle, a whale hump full of blissful couples and families eating around a big dining room table and laughing. And then, at the tapered ends, there were the abnormal people. The weirdos and freaks and zeroes. Like her.”
― Lauren Oliver, Panic

“Listen,” said Granger, taking his arm, and walking with him, holding aside the bushes to let him pass. “When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give to the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us, and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“A sister, I’d said. But what is that exactly? I think about our journey—everything from sniping with her in those early days after the reaping to battling those pink birds. I guess that’s my answer. A sister is someone you fight with and fight for. Tooth and nail”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“Young women and young men grow up, but old women and old men just grow older and surer they’ve got the right on their side. Especially if they know scripture.”
― Stephen King, Joyland