Danita L

“He wanted, acutely in that moment, to be not-alive. Not to be dead, not to kill himself, but to have the burden of living lifted from his shoulders.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“It was too much to ask to be loved all the way through life, and you could return to the memory for sustenance. Being loved all the time might be a curtailment, a redundancy. It”
― Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

“Mama got up, went into her bedroom, and shut the door. A woman must stay alone for a long while until the hate men have for women has left her, and even longer until the jealousy women have for other women has left her, and longer still until the anger her children have for her has left her—until she is no longer a woman altered by the resentment of men, women, and children, no longer what others have forced her to be, but empty as a skull or a shell, filled only by whatever she pleases, forest air perhaps.”
― Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

“Where does all our effort go? It’s hard not to envy the monsters when you see how good they have it. And how unbothered they are at being monsters.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!