Blake Ellis

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you!”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“There are extraordinary people who appear unexpectedly on our paths, and, just as suddenly, they disappear, leaving their indelible marks and a sense of regret. Brief and bright, like a match striking a flame in the dark, they heat the damp kindling of our hearts and then they are gone.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“Our ape brains got too big, too big for our heads, too big for our mothers to birth them. So we started keeping all our extra knowing in language, in art, in stories and books and songs. Art was a way of storing our brains in each other’s.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“It was a time during which I questioned myself and came to realize that the problem was not that I didn’t want kids, or maybe more specifically didn’t want to nurture, to love, to care for, and raise something. The problem, the true heartbreak, was wanting those things and also feeling like I couldn’t in good conscience have them.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore