Eline

“And I told you to bring nine toys," she said. "You brought eight. Next time try to pay more attention." And the disappointment in her voice made him cry even harder, so hard that he couldn't talk, and thus he couldn't tell her that he put eight toys in the wagon because the ninth toy was the wagon itself.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Or at school you might have been prodded to come “out of your shell”—that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.”
― Ali Smith, Autumn