Mark Clar

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“I don’t know if we’re in a love story or a story about love.”
― Becky Albertalli, What If It's Us

“A long time ago, psychopathy used to be called simply ‘evil’. People who were evil – who took a delight in hurting or killing others – were written about ever since Medea took an axe to her children, and probably long before that. The word ‘psychopath’ was coined by a German psychiatrist in 1888 […] from the German word psychopastiche, literally meaning ‘suffering soul’. For Mariana this was the clue – the suffering – the sense that these monsters were also in pain. […] Psychopathy or sadism never appeared from nowhere. It was not a virus, infecting someone out of the blue. It had a long prehistory in childhood. […] Yet many children grow up in terribly abusive environments – and they don’t end up as murderers. Why? Well, as Mariana’s old supervisor used to say, ‘It doesn’t take much to save a childhood.’ A little kindness, some understanding or validation: someone to recognise and acknowledge a child’s reality – and save his sanity.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Maidens

“Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent