Zara

“There were cold days, too; suddenly bitter days that looked the same through the window as the warm ones – the sky blue; the leaves acid green. It was only when you left the house bare-armed, the chill wind penetrating your cotton layers, that you discovered they were only pretending to be nice. Aggressive mimicry; you find it everywhere in nature. Spiders that look like the ants on which they feed, death’s-head hawkmoths that emit the smell of bees so they can sneak into the hive unnoticed and steal their honey, weeds that spring up next to almost identical cultured plants, strangling them and draining the goodness from the earth . . . The world is full of predators or parasites gaining advantage by their resemblance to a softer third party.”
― Sabine Durrant, Finders, Keepers

“We can easily learn as children how to go against what our inner sense is telling us. We learn to ignore what we want and instead we learn what to do in order to please others, despite it not feeling nice for us. We neglect our needs or wants in favour of doing what is "right". Except it's not.”
― Dr Sarah Davies, How to Leave a Narcissist ... For Good: Moving On From Abusive and Toxic Relationships

“I’ve realised it isn’t just fate – though that plays a part, like a backdrop. It’s the small things inside you, the slants and notches, the defects, that trap you.”
― Sabine Durrant, Lie With Me

“Oh! to be sure,” cried Emma, “it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”
― Jane Austen, Emma