Izzy

“The way he looked at it, he’d been born with all his fingers and toes, he didn’t have a harelip or a cauliflower ear or a limp of any kind - so to compensate for his lack of ill fortune, his parents had christened him Myron.”
― Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker

“You don’t exist to make them feel better. That isn’t your role. It isn’t your responsibility.’ ‘But that’s what you do when you love someone. You support them. You help them. You make them feel better.’ ‘Not at the expense of your own happiness. Your own health.”
― Alex Stone, The Good Patient

“The price of living a long life, I think, is the sheer weight of the losses you have to suffer. You carry each loved one you lose, and they stack up, and it becomes unbearable.”
― Laura Pearson, The Last List of Mabel Beaumont

“Heaven forfend, Martha! Conformity is a death sentence. No, my dear, you must embrace what makes you stand out. That’s what they despise. It’s the circle of hell in this life – blaming children for being who they are, because we were blamed and our parents before us. If you’re not harming anyone, why try to change who you are?”
― Evie Woods, The Lost Bookshop