Katie Chapman

“Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.”
― J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

“That was the thing about experience. It took distant strangers and made them a family. A family of one moment. There was no other way to see it, even as we scattered to the wind.”
― Paula McLain, Love and Ruin

“I think so, too. I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”
― Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty