Olivia

“People bear loneliness every day. They think they won't be able to, that they won't survive, but somehow one second slips into another, becomes an hour, a day, a week, and they are still living. They are still alone, even in the middle of a crowd of people. Even with a partner, a child.”
― Laura Barnett, The Versions of Us

“When you stumble on something you didn’t know that somebody else felt too, you think, oh my gosh, I’m not the only one. That is a falling in love – it’s the self recognized in someone else. A union of souls.”
― Natasha Lunn, Conversations on Love: Lovers, Strangers, Parents, Friends, Endings, Beginnings

“Listen,' someone whispers into my ear. 'Listen to me.'
Am I dead?
'Listen,' the voice whispers. 'In some countries, you kill a monster when it's born. Other places, you kill it only when it kills someone else. Other places, you let it go, out into the forest or the sea, and it lives there forever, calling for others of its kind. Listen to me, it cries. Maybe it's just alone.”
― Maria Dahvana Headley, The Mere Wife

“What I want, desperately, is for someone to sit next to me for a moment and hold my hand and say one kind thing I didn’t know was true.”
― Maria Adelmann, Girls of a Certain Age