Olivia Lo

“I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer sa petite maman Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Being cheerful starts now, Will thought as hard as he could, but it was like trying to hold a fighting wolf still in his arms when it wanted to claw at his face and tear out his throat; nevertheless, he did it, and he thought no one could see the effort it cost him.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“But what remains of what you said to someone after it has been filtered through that person’s frame of reference, views, attitudes, experiences, prejudices, and preconceived notions is ultimately the message that has been understood.”
― Thomas Erikson, Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behaviour and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business

“I am asking: If my options were never being able to find my brother, or knowing for sure that something terrible had happened to him, which would I choose? What’s the line between the amount of information that brings hope and the amount that brings despair?”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left