Nina

“And now I just feel like the kind of person whose life partner would fall out of love with them after several years, and I can’t find a way not to be that kind of person anymore.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“Sometimes when I get really sad and depressed, you know, I lie in bed and think about you. I don’t mean in a sexual way. I just think about the goodness of you as a person. And since you like me, or you love me, I must be okay. I can feel that feeling inside myself even now while I’m describing it to you. It’s like, when everything is really bad, it’s this one small feeling the size of an acorn, and it’s inside me, here. She gestured to the base of her breastbone, between her ribs. It’s like the way, when I’m upset, I know I can call you, and you’ll say soothing things to me, she said. And when I think about that, most of the time I don’t even need to call you, because I can feel it, the way I’m describing. I can feel that you’re with me. I know that probably sounds stupid. But if we got together and then broke up, would I not be able to feel that anymore? And what would I have inside here instead? She tapped the base of her breastbone again with anxious fingers. Nothing? she asked.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“Maybe certain kinds of pain, at certain formative stages in life, just impress themselves into a person’s sense of self permanently. Like the way I didn’t lose my virginity until I was twenty and it was so painful and awkward and bad, and since then I’ve always felt like exactly the kind of person that would happen to, even though before then I didn’t. And now I just feel like the kind of person whose life partner would fall out of love with them after several years, and I can’t find a way not to be that kind of person anymore.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“And I think if I believed in God, I wouldn't want to prostrate myself before him and ask for forgiveness. I would just want to thank him every day, for everything.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You