Karen

“It took some real inattention to detail, reality, and history to call either the Chinese or the varied nations that made up what Britain called India uncivilized, but then English propriety was that rare combination of inattention to everything that mattered coupled with a minute fascination with everything that didn’t.”
― Courtney Milan, The Devil Comes Courting

“There was no way to explain that the thing about dark is that it’s rare. There’s always some ambient light. There’s always that contrast that helps you understand: This is dark. The pricks of stars, the leak beneath the door, the glow of an appliance, something. Wasn’t its ability to assert itself, and at breakneck speed at that, light’s most remarkable quality?”
― Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind

“A revelation earned only in hindsight: beauty can have a corrosive effect on character. It is possible to coast for some years on no more than a few polished lines and a dazzling smile, and those years are formative.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

“There are men with this much money and it’s not that they control the world. They’ve defeated it. They’ve left it. They live somewhere above the rest of us and we spend our days not knowing this because if we did we would all lose our minds.”
― Rumaan Alam, Entitlement