Emmy B

“There are repercussions for living the life she’s chosen. I wonder if the loss is worth it, and if she believes it’s worth it. I wonder what she feels after I leave to go back to Dilip and she looks around her house. Maybe this isn’t her choice at all, but another path she has mapped over and over, one she cannot unlearn. I want to ask her if, in all the years she has run away, any part of her screams come after me? Does she want to be caught, brought back and convinced that she is important, that she is necessary?”
― Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar

“I tell her I am not sure what to do, that maybe I’ve lost my imagination.
She says she never thought my work required much imagination, that it was copying an image over and over again.
I explain that I mean another kind of imagination, the kind that invents a world where my work matters. But the days seem endless and bright, so time doesn't seem to move.”
― Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar

“Whether you have children, write books, sell pastries on the street or sign million-dollar business contracts, what matters is to be happy and fulfilled inside. Are you?”
― Elif Shafak, Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within

“She will tell her, she vows, that loving a child does not come naturally, not for everyone, not even if it is a child you have birth to.”
― Cherie Jones, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House