Henrietta Mather

“Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence - but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I once heard a stranger in agitated conversation with her pug: And I suppose it's all my fault again, isn't it? At which, I swear, the dog rolled its eyes.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

“It’s not uncommon to wish to have known what a person you’ve come to love was like before you met them. It hurts, almost, not to have known what a beloved was like as a child. I have felt this way about every man I’ve ever been in love with, and about many close friends as well, and now it’s how I feel about Apollo.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

“I had yet to learn that all human relationships end in pain—it is the price that our imperfection has allowed Satan to exact from us for the privilege of love.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed