Nicole

“You taught me the courage of stars before you left, how light carries on endlessly, even after death.” Those lyrics are from a song titled “Saturn,” by Ryan O’Neal, who performs as Sleeping at Last. It is a song about a deathbed conversation, the imparting of wisdom from a dying person to a beloved survivor: that it is an extraordinary chance to have existed at all, a rare and marvelous happenstance to have lived and experienced consciousness. Even more rare and marvelous, in this riven, aching world, to have thrived. To have found love, joy, security, fulfillment.”
― Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days

“I’m not sure if our modern secular world has the capacity to come up with a gentler way of dealing with bereavement.”
― Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days

“When I started to write fiction, I came across a piece of advice on the craft of novel writing. Your task, as novelist, is to keep pushing your protagonist’s head under water throughout the narrative. But when you get to the end, you must decide: Will you sink them, or let them swim?”
― Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days

“Do your work. It might not be your best work, but it will be good work, and it will be what saves you.” Deborah had followed that advice and taken her grief back into the field, reporting on the plight of Syrian refugees. I could imagine doing that: subsuming my sadness in the dire hardships of others. What I couldn’t imagine was crawling back to my desk to do the work of imagination.”
― Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days