Eleanor

“My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn't afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“Grief is like a deep, dark hole. It calls like a siren: Come to me, lose yourself here. And you fight it and you fight it and you fight it, but when you finally do succumb and jump down into it, you can’t quite believe how deep it is. It feels as if this is how you will live for the rest of your life, falling. Terrified and devastated, until you yourself die.
But that is the mirage.
That is grief’s dizzying spell.
The fall isn’t never-ending. It does have a ground floor.
Today, I cry for so long that I finally feel the floor under my feet. I find the bottom. And while I know the hole will be there forever, at least for now, I feel as if I can live inside it. I have learned its boundaries and its edges.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carrie Soto Is Back

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Some men's childhoods are permitted to last forever, but women are so often reminded that there is work to be done.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carrie Soto Is Back