Carolyn

“But I think that's a good thing, really, because if you did know it would be almost impossible to let go. When you do know, it's like being asked to step off a cliff: all you want to do is get down on your hands and knees and kiss the solid ground, smell it, hold on to it.:”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“But anyway, I look around sometimes and I think - this will maybe sound weird - it's like the corporate world's full of ghosts. And actually, let me revise that, my parents are in academia so I've had front row seats for that horror show, I know academia's no different, so maybe a fairer way of putting this would be to say that adulthood's full of ghosts."

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure I quite --"

"I'm talking about these people who've ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They've done what's expected of them. They want to do something different but it's impossible now, there's a mortgage, kids, whatever, they're trapped. Dan's like that."

"You don't think he likes his job, then."

"Correct," she said, "but I don't think he even realises it. You probably encounter people like him all the time. High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

“After all, SeaWorld didn’t become a $2.5 billion company because of sequins and choreography. It was built on the backs of captive killer whales.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Captivity is always captivity, no matter how gentle the jailer.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish