Glady

“She wished she hadn’t cleaned her apartment so thoroughly in advance of the trip to Maine, so that she might have some dishes to wash, or a bathroom floor that needed scouring. She kept her place spotless. Her shrink had once asked whether she thought this was a reaction to her mother’s choices, and Maggie laughed, because what behavior on earth wasn’t a reaction to some mother’s choice?”
― J. Courtney Sullivan, Maine

“Container ships guzzle fossil fuels to transport cheap plastic toys and electronics across oceans to nations where they are discarded and tossed into vast, off-gassing landfills that poison groundwater and contribute to glacial ice melt. Poverty makes people fat, and wealth makes them unhappy. People drive themselves to gyms to walk in place and watch TV.”
― Jessica Shattuck, Last House

“A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference. Cartography is another name for stories told by winners.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I think of fanaticism – of any type – as a viral disease. Creeping in menacingly, ticking like a pendulum clock that never winds down, it takes hold of you faster when you are part of an enclosed, homogenous unit. Better to keep some distance from all collective beliefs and certainties,”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees