Julia James Burns

“What do you think I’m trying to do? Not my fault I was dealt a shitty hand.” “No, the deal is never anyone’s fault. But you control the way you play.”
― Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures

“Maybe it was Highlander Syndrome—I’ve read about that before, the way members of marginalized groups feel threatened if someone else like them starts finding success.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“There’s something so joyless about the left these days,’ Tony continued, ‘so forbidding and self-denying. And policing. No one’s having any fun, we’re all just sitting around scolding each other for doing too much or not enough--and it’s like, what kind of vision for the future is that? Where’s the hope? Where’s the humanity? We’re all aspiring to be monks when we could be aspiring to be lovers.”
― Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood