“Normal men aren’t going to love anyone who looks forward to anything but them. And I couldn’t help looking forward to being published.”
― Black Swans: Stories
― Black Swans: Stories
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off-beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“Lazlo had loved Sarai as a dream, and he would love her as a ghost as well.”
― Strange the Dreamer
― Strange the Dreamer
“She knew exactly, sort of, what she was going to do.”
― Eve's Hollywood
― Eve's Hollywood
“I read, I wrote, I learned, and I fucked—it was a classic liberal arts education.”
― A Certain Hunger
― A Certain Hunger
Alina’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Alina’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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