Kate

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!”
― Andre Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sudden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“The world is like that -- incomprehensible and full of surprises .”
― Jorge Amado, Gabriela, clavo y canela

“Women endure. That’s what we do.”
“That’s nonsense,” she replied more harshly than I expected. “A woman is more than a vessel meant to carry babies and grief.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River