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“Love requires a bareness, a certain pliability, and I didn't thrill at the possibility of being transformed or wiped away.”
― Dantiel W. Moniz, Milk Blood Heat

“...it was ludicrous to think that we could just talk our way out of shame, that shame was necessary, that it prevented us from repeating shameful actions and that it motivated us to say we were sorry and to seek forgiveness and to empathize with our fellow humans and to feel the pain of self-loathing which motivated some of us to write books as a futile attempt at atonement, and shame also helped, I told my friend, to fuck up relationships and fucked-up relationships are the life force of books and movies and theatre so sure, let's get rid of shame but then we can kiss art goodbye too.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“You take many things from the world, but I wonder what you will give back in return?”
― Genzaburo Yoshino, How Do You Live?

“It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows