Zacchaeus

“Connor:I let her go. I could have held on but I let her go.

The Monster:And that is the truth.

Connor:I didn't mean it, though! I didn't mean to let her go! And now it's for real! Now she's going to die and it's my fault!

The Monster:And that is not the truth at all.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“The answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. You wanted her to go at the same time you were desperate for me to save her. Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“As a child, watching the news or listening to it on the radio with my father I thought, when they said “the body was discovered by a man walking his dog,” that it was always the same man. I still imagine him, putting his walking shoes on at the door, finding the leash, the familiar dread as he clips it onto the dog’s collar, but still setting out, regardless, in the hope that, today, there won’t be a body. But twenty minutes later, God, there it is.”
― Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss

“Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. That is what life is. It’s only the ratios that change. Usually on their own. As soon as you think that’s it, it’s going to be like this forever, they change again.”
― Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss