Caitlyn Nelson

“Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“But I would do it all again, every bit of it, I would lose him again just to have him again for an hour, for a minute, for even a second. I would do it all again just to see his face.”
― Lee Smith, On Agate Hill

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch