S.

“I used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should-haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible--separation. Brokeness. An end without an ending.”
― Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

“One naive pro-natalist assumption is that because death is a bad thing, procreation, which can be considered the antonym of death is a god thing, but the naive defect in that assumption is that it ignores the obvious fact that procreation is an essential (and the ultimate cause) of death”
― Jiwoon Hwang

“For emotionally immature people, all interactions boil down to the question of whether they’re good people or bad ones, which explains their extreme defensiveness if you try to talk to them about something they did. They often respond to even mild complaints about their behavior with an extreme statement, like “Well, then, I must be the worst mother ever!” or “Obviously I can’t do anything right!” They would rather shut down communication than hear something that could make them feel like bad people.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“The mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself: life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures, so I cannot take the responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into the world.”
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork