Sara

“She was scared right out of her mind. She had to be—to rescue herself. So she quit working to make sense of things—we don't always realise it, but it's hard work we do almost every waking moment, building our thoughts and memories and actions around time, things that happened yesterday, and things that are happening right now, and what's coming tomorrow, layering all of that simultaneously and holding it in balance. She cut it out and just kept moving. She was nobody, she was nowhere, doing nothing, but doing it as hard and fast as she could.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox

“That's my future self, that's my future self. Listen to you. You sound like an idiot. Who do you think you are? Imagine there's a version of you that sees all of it. A version that knows when versions are messing with the other ones, trying to get things off track, trying to erase things. A record of all the keystrokes, the storage of all the versions, partial and deleted and written over. All the changes. All truths about all parts of our self. We break ourselves up into parts. To lie to ourselves, to hide things from ourselves. You are not you. You are not what you think you are. You are bigger than you think. More complicated than you think. You are the only version of you that is you. There are less of you than you think, and more. There are a million versions of you, half a trillion. One for every particle, every quantum coin flip. Imagine this uncountable number of your. You don't always have your own best interests at heart. That's true. You are your own best friend and your own worst enemy. You can't trust a guy who gives you a book and says, This is your life. He might have been your future, he might not. Only you know how you get there. Only you know what you need to do. Imagine there is a perfect version of you. Out of all the oceans of oceans of you, there is exactly one who is perfectly you. And that's me. And I'm telling you: you are the only you. Does that make any sense?”
― Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

“Life is a wheel. The way we end up where we begin. From here everything rises—the worn path, the moon with its long bright ears. Imagine water traveling back up into the sky, the sound of it climbing like a question. Who would we be if we had stayed?”
― Quan Barry, She Weeps Each Time You're Born

“All that happens when you grow up is that your ethics get completely compromised and you do extremely dodgy things you never imagined doing, apparently for the sake of others. Plus, growing up isn't in my job description.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, Gingerbread