Elyse

“Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?”
― Dave Eggers, The Circle

“She hadn’t been touched by anyone in almost two years. Now Zeus was climbing all over her like she was Mount Olympus.”
― Stephanie Evanovich, Big Girl Panties

“-Nothing good is easy
-Not true! Sleep, TV, Jell-O Instant Pudding
-I don't want to go out with Jell-O
-I would MARRY Jell-O”
― Rainbow Rowell, Landline

“But anyway, I look around sometimes and I think - this will maybe sound weird - it's like the corporate world's full of ghosts. And actually, let me revise that, my parents are in academia so I've had front row seats for that horror show, I know academia's no different, so maybe a fairer way of putting this would be to say that adulthood's full of ghosts."

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure I quite --"

"I'm talking about these people who've ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They've done what's expected of them. They want to do something different but it's impossible now, there's a mortgage, kids, whatever, they're trapped. Dan's like that."

"You don't think he likes his job, then."

"Correct," she said, "but I don't think he even realises it. You probably encounter people like him all the time. High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven