Lóre Stevens

“I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties

“A great textile, like the William Morris Strawberry Thief, is a piece of art, but it takes a lot of time to make a piece of art. It isn't simply design either. You have to understand the fabrics and what they can bear. You have to understand the dyeing process and how to achieve certain colors and what will make the color last through the ages. If you make a mistake, you might have to begin again."
"I don't think I know Strawberry Thief," Sadie said.
"One moment," Mrs. Watanabe said. Mrs. Watanabe went into her bedroom, and she returned with a little footstool that was upholstered in a reproduction of Strawberry Thief. The pattern depicted birds and strawberries in a garden, and although Sadie hadn't known the name, she recognized the print when she saw it.
"This was William Morris's garden. These were his strawberries. Those were birds he knew. No designer had ever used red or yellow in an indigo discharge dyeing technique before. He must have had to start over many times to get the colors right. This fabric is not just a fabric. It's the story of failure and of perseverance, of the discipline of a craftsman, of the life of an artist.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Those two people in the back of the boat, he felt kind of sorry for them. They still lived in the drowned city, they belonged down there, and the fact that they couldn't go there broke their hearts. But not Deaver. His city wasn't even built yet. His city was tomorrow.”
― Orson Scott Card, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

“It occurs to me that the energy in my body is the same as the energy in the red power lights, just a different current. What’s inside the office lights is inside me. It’s also what’s in the stars a million miles away. The water in my blood is the same stuff rushing in the creek next to me. The wind that is outside of me is also inside of me. I pull it in and push it out; it is the same breath being used by the frogs, the birds, the people breaking into cars downtown, pumping through the HVAC systems of the condos down the road. I pick up my hand and stare at it, thick, heavy, cold. I am earth. This is earth. I am the dirt I am walking on. I am conscious earth. They are here all the time. Something, finally, clicks. Bliss floods me, like a drug, like a wave. I take a great, heaving breath. All the atoms in my body remember what it was like to be inside the core of a star right before it went supernova. Before I know it, I am staring at my hand, crying. I am crying because my hand is a miracle. It’s like I have never seen it before. My hand is all five elements made flesh. I am a miracle. Everything is a fucking miracle. It is urgent. It is overwhelming.”
― Diana Helmuth, The Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft