Vanessa Bailey

“People who command respect are never as widely known as people who command attention. For”
― Kathleen Rooney, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

“Now, as far as I was concerned, there are two ways of living, and because we're on a ball in space these were more or less exactly poles apart. The first, accept the world as it is. The world is concrete and considerable, with beauties and flaws both, and both immense, profound and perplexing, and if you can take it as it is and for what it is you'll all but guarantee an easier path, because it's a given that acceptance is one of the keys to any kind of contentment. The second, that acceptance is surrender, that there's a place for it, but that place is somewhere just before your last breath where you say "All right then, I have tried" and accept that you have lived and loved as best you could, have pushed against every wall, stood up after every disappointment, and until that last moment, you shouldn't accept anything, you should make things better.”
― Niall Williams, This Is Happiness

“They looked like frogs who’d been kissed and kissed roughly, yet stayed frogs.”
― Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

“If one were HAPPY, then one might stay in with a book, say, and not go out hunting for fun.”
― Kathleen Rooney, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk