Atiha

“Maybe we're just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing. And if that means the human species is going to die out, isn't it in a way a nice reason to die out, the nicest reason you can imagine? Because when we should have been reorganising the distribution of the world's resources and transitioning collectively to a sustainable economic model, we were worrying about sex and friendship instead. Because we loved each other too much and found each other too interesting. And I love that about humanity, and in fact it's the very reason I root for us to survive - because we are so stupid about each other.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“Gradually the waiting began to feel less like waiting and more like this was simply what life was: the distracting tasks undertaken while the thing you are waiting for continues not to happen.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“And isn’t death just the apocalypse in the first person?”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“You’re indecisive, for one. You let other people choose for you, over what you want, and that’s not just sad, Rosie, it’s fucking spineless, which is the opposite of what you actually are. And you have this false perception of what’s good and, I don’t know, proper. Like it matters. You don’t live your life the way you should. You never speak out, to anyone, least of all your mother, who frankly could do with being put straight. You don’t sing, anymore. You deny yourself everything. You rob yourself, Roe. Every second of every hour, you’re forcing yourself into some kind of box, and it’s fucking painful to witness, but you do it anyway because you don’t know any different, and nobody’s ever told you not to. Snow is falling now. It drifts down, lands in her hair. She is looking at him as he rants, her hands back beneath her arms. But in spite of all that, Will says, there is not a single thing wrong with you, Roe. With any tiny part of you.”
― Claire Daverley, Talking at Night