Gema Wheatley

“]
]you will remember
]for we in our youth
did these things

yes many and beautiful things
]
]
]”
― Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

“You will one day experience joy that matches this pain. You will cry euphoric tears at the Beach Boys, you will stare down at a baby’s face as she lies asleep in your lap, you will make great friends, you will eat delicious foods you haven’t tried yet, you will be able to look at a view from a high place and not assess the likelihood of dying from falling. There are books you haven’t read yet that will enrich you, films you will watch while eating extra-large buckets of popcorn, and you will dance and laugh and have sex and go for runs by the river and have late-night conversations and laugh until it hurts. Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything that happened.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

“There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself. I don't really see the difference. We find ourselves through the process of escaping.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive