Gillian

“But still, you know how it is when you’re missing a loved one. You try to turn every stranger into the person you were hoping for. You hear a certain piece of music and right away you tell yourself that he could have changed his clothing style, could have gained a ton of weight, could have acquired a car and then parked that car in front of another family’s house. “It’s him!” you say. “He came! We knew he would; we always …” But then you hear how pathetic you sound, and your words trail off into silence, and your heart breaks.”
― Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread

“We are taught to think ourselves ugly. Eyes are an assaulted sense. We are taught to behave by spankings and whippings. Touch is an assaulted sense. We are taught we should not smell, or we smell wrong. Smell is an assaulted sense. We listen to songs that call us 'hos and tell us how to give blow jobs. Hearing is an assaulted sense. Taste, not so much.”
― Alice Randall, Ada's Rules: A Sexy Skinny Novel

“She loved them so much that she felt a kind of hollowness on the inner surface of her arms whenever she looked at them-an ache of longing to pull them close and hold them tight against her.”
― Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread

“A smile is the universal welcome.”
― Max Eastman, The Sense of Humor