Aish

“A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“That was the first time he sobbed in earnest. Not the cries of someone driven mad with fear, but the tears of someone who understood and was saddened by their own loneliness—the tears of a human being.”
― Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

“We can’t stop living. Which means we have to live, which means we are alive, which means we are humans and we are human: some of us are unkind and some of us are confused and some of us sleep with the wrong people and some of us make bad decisions and some of us are murderers. And it sounds terrible but it is, in fact, freeing: the idea that queer does not equal good or pure or right. It is simply a state of being—one subject to politics, to its own social forces, to larger narratives, to moral complexities of every kind. So bring on the queer villains, the queer heroes, the queer sidekicks and secondary characters and protagonists and extras. They can be a complete cast unto themselves. Let them have agency, and then let them go.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“A house is never apolitical. It is conceived, constructed, occupied, and policed by people with power, needs, and fears.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House