Shay

“To the person who has anything to conceal—to the person who wants to lose his identity as one leaf among the leaves of a forest—to the person who asks no more than to pass by and be forgotten, there is one name above others which promises a haven of safety and oblivion. London. Where no one knows his neighbour. Where shops do not know their customers. Where physicians are suddenly called to unknown patients whom they never see again. Where you may lie dead in your house for months together unmissed and unnoticed till the gas-inspector comes to look at the meter. Where strangers are friendly and friends are casual. London, whose rather untidy and grubby bosom is the repository of so many odd secrets. Discreet, incurious and all-enfolding London.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death

“Abandonment. What did that really mean? That I was left? That I had learned to leave my self. That I would retell the story until I found a different ending. Until I learned to stay.”
― Melissa Febos, Abandon Me: Memoirs

“He did not crush gold cans of Presidente, like his father had. He did not collapse the drywall with our bodies. But I saw him weep in the yard.”
― Melissa Febos, Abandon Me: Memoirs

“Maddie quickly pulled down the blackout curtains over her bright and vulnerable soul.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity