ASHLEY

“Because it’s been a painfully short life, the blink of an eye, a single summer’s day. Ted’s chest hurts, like crying without oxygen, because grief does so many strange things to people, and one of those things is that we forget how to breathe. As if the body’s first instinct is to grieve itself to death. Soon Ted will stand up and discover that he’s forgotten how to walk too, that happens to us all when the love of our life falls asleep for the last time, because when the soul leaves the body, evidently the last thing it does is tie our shoelaces together. In the weeks following the death we trip over thin air. It’s the soul’s fault.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“Adults always think they can protect children by stopping them from going to dangerous places, but every teenager knows that’s pointless, because the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and in dark alleys alike.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm… you will triumph.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“Emotions have a way of collecting and hardening inside us, like neglected grease. We are all smoking stoves.”
― Meg Howrey, They're Going to Love You