Elise

“Vi är alltså svaga, och hon, kvinnan med någon sorts ceriserosa kavaj och lite för trång blus, så där så att det glipar över bysten, är alltså stark.
Jag är inte säker på att jag vill ha den här beskäftiga och illa klädda kvinnan på ’min sida’. Jag fruktar att hon inte är lika smart som jag. Jag tror att hon är dum och jag är smart, men visst, jag kan väl sympatisera med de dumma. Stå på deras sida och försvara de stackarna, men jag vill helst inte att de för min talan. Jag tror inte att hennes intellektuella kapacitet räcker till för det. Nämligen.”
― Ann Heberlein, Ett gott liv

“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I may wake up sometime next year without my mind again; it is not likely to stick around all the time. Meanwhile, however, I have discovered what I would have to call a soul, a part of myself I could never have imagined until one day, seven years ago, when hell came to pay me a surprise visit. It's a precious discovery. Almost every day I feel momentary flashes of hopelessness and wonder every time whether I am slipping. For a petrifying instant here and there, a lightning-quick flash, I want a car to run me over...I hate these feelings but, but I know that they have driven me to look deeper at life, to find and cling to reasons for living, I cannot find it in me to regret entirely the course my life has taken. Every day, I choose, sometimes gamely, and sometimes against the moment's reason, to be alive. Is that not a rare joy?”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“There was a certain luxury to charity that she could not identify with and did not have. To take "charity" for granted, to revel in this charity towards people whom one did not know—perhaps it came from having had a yesterday and having today and expecting to have tomorrow. She envied them this. ...Ifemelu wanted, suddenly and desperately, to be from the country of people who gave and not those who received, to be one of those who had and could therefore bask in the grace of having given. To be among those who could afford copious pity and empathy.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“Folk gråter för litet, visste de hur mycket de borde gråta skulle de aldrig sluta, börjar man gråta finns det inget slut på det.”
― Bodil Malmsten