Leah Johnson

“Books became our language. Books became our home. Books became our lives.”
― Donna Barba Higuera, The Last Cuentista

“But he does worry about it—in the long hours of darkness. And then, in the morning, he forgets the weakness of the night.”
― Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls

“When I knew my mother would be dead in a few months, I had two choices . . .” She looked at him. “I could distance myself from the pain or get closer to it. Maybe because I’d lost my dad without getting a chance to tell him what he meant to me, I decided to get closer. I got so close, her pain and fear became my own. We shared everything and loved each other like we never had when death was some distant thing. In the end, part of me died with her. I’m not recovered from it even now, but I made the conscious choice to enter the darkness with her. Everyone I know who’s lost someone they love has voiced regrets—they wish they’d done this or that or loved them more. I have no regrets. None.”
― Glendy Vanderah, Where the Forest Meets the Stars

“How would he know? He’s never been to a museum and seen art from Cézanne to Savage. Basquiat to Kahlo. He’s never eaten in a universal commissary with choices from udon to bucatini, Irish stew to pepián. Just because someone says something over and over doesn’t make it true. And suddenly, after all this time, I truly understand what the word dogma means.”
― Donna Barba Higuera, The Last Cuentista