Susan

“Surely there was a word for this stronger than love. Holding her made me feel like I had come home after a very long trip that I hadn’t really wanted to go on. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I hadn’t even known I wanted her, but her existence somehow soothed me. My life up until this very moment seemed like a series of hits and misses. Then someone had placed this gift in my arms that I didn’t deserve, and now my life made complete sense. Just like that.”
― Celeste Fletcher McHale, The Secret to Hummingbird Cake

“The whale’s time is passing fast now. But the females stick close, do what they can. They are the whale’s family now. Which means the whale is home. Jay wonders how it feels for Mitt, sender of so many clicks over his seven-month demise, to be the subject of such a reception, to feel the bodies of loved ones so close inside the ocean vast. There’s nothing to hug in a stomach, but Jay does his best. He wants the whale to know he’s here. At last, he’s here.”
― Daniel Kraus, Whalefall

“But there’s satisfaction in sitting still. Most people, they’re never satisfied. They get a nice car and, pretty soon, the nice car’s not nice enough. It’s leftover survival instinct, probably, something to keep the species developing. Your mom’s like that. Your sisters. Doesn’t mean they’re bad, they’re just— They don’t know how to just be. There’s these guys in Cannery Row. One day you’ll read it. Bunch of hobos, but they know how the pursuit of money, it’ll kill you. They have a little shack and they’re happy. They take life as it is. Not how they wished it could be.”
― Daniel Kraus, Whalefall