Vic

“Es el ansia de perfección la que asesina los afectos, la sed de absoluto, el miedo a la costumbre, la perenne nostalgia de imposibles, la negativa constante a aceptarnos como somos y a aceptar a los demás por lo que son. Cuando uno no se entiende a sí mismo es imposible que entienda que otros le amen, y es imposible por tanto que respete a aquellos que le quieren. Pero el tiempo nos ofrece sólo dos opciones: o asumir lo que somos, o abandonar; y si no abandonamos, si decidimos quedarnos en este planeta minúsculo y pactar con nuestra aún más minúscula vida, podemos interpretar esta resignación como una derrota, o como un triunfo.”
― Lucía Etxebarria, Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes

“Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome? Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same handsome men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“When she looked at herself in her wedding photographs, Ammu felt the woman that looked back at her was someone else. A foolish jewelled bride. Her silk sunset-coloured sari shot with gold. Rings on every finger. White dots of sandalwood paste over her arched eye-brows. Looking at herself like this, Ammu's soft mouth would twist into a small, bitter smile at the memory - not of the wedding itself so much as the fact that she had permitted herself to be so painstakingly decorated before being led to the gallows. It seemed so absurd. So futile.
Like polishing firewood.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“Perhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room