I waved, smiled meekly. I didn’t mind being alone—really, I didn’t—but I hated the way it made others see me.
“And you’re in love?” “Ma, we’ve never even kissed.” “And that has anything to do with it?” “Okay, fine. Yes, I think so. But don’t tell anyone. Don’t even repeat it to yourself.” “Why?” “Because it’s humiliating.” “Sweetheart, love is humiliating. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?” “Who would have told me that?” “Do you know the word humiliate comes from the Latin root humus , which means ‘earth’? That’s how love is supposed to feel.” “Like hummus?” “Like earth. It ground s you. All this nonsense about love being a drug, making you feel high, that’s not real. It should hold you like the earth.” “Wow, Ma.” “What? I have a heart, don’t I?”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
“I'm so lonely I could make a map of my loneliness....Sometimes I'm so lonely I'm not even on that map.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
“Only then, in the quietness beneath, did the new feeling arrive. It was shame . Shame that she had quit her job, shame that she did not paint, shame that she had married Frank, shame that he was in love with someone else, shame that she had run to Anders for comfort, shame that he had discarded her, shame that Frank drank like he did, shame that they let Jesus die, shame that Frank had let her tear apart the whole apartment looking for her before coming clean about what he’d done, shame that she’d covered for him and told everyone that Jesus had escaped, shame that it was her secret now too, shame that she was too afraid to leave him when she said she would, shame that her mother was dead and she could not ask her for advice, shame that her mother didn’t want to be her mother enough to not be dead, just shame, shame, shame.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
“What did reality have to do with anything anyway? Quentin hated reality. Reality was sweaty and ugly. It was deodorant stains on black clothing and cold sore cream and utility bills. It was fake girlfriends and formal dinners in ill-fitting suits. It was his father lecturing him in broken English about being a man. It was all of Poland, that rundown junk shop of a country, with its stray dogs and secret forests where men fucked each other in the dark and then went home to their wives. No, Quentin wanted fantasy , which was exactly why he was going to the orgy that night.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
“We want because we’re wanting . Both senses of the word. The lacking and the longing, all rolled into one. The more you find yourself wanting, the more you want.”
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
― Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Megan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Megan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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