Nikki Lockhart

“One of our signature flaws as a species: we will risk almost anything to avoid looking stupid.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

“What did it mean, what your father said about the tall, quiet woman.

Ar, that? Let's see. Used to say there was four women in every man's heart. The Maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted Woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“These homes of love we build, house many rooms, sanded and painted in the shades and colours of our life, furnished with those moments that, however inconsequential they may seem to others, have in fact, defined us.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness. Had we been placed on earth by a malign creator for the exclusive purpose of suffering, we would have good reason to congratulate ourselves on our enthusiastic response to the task. Reasons to be inconsolable abound: the frailty of our bodies, the fickleness of love, the insincerities of social life, the compromises of friendship, the deadening effects of habit. In the face of such persistent ills, we might naturally expect that no event would be awaited with greater anticipation than the moment of our own extinction. Someone”
― Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life