Déborah

“I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn’t that why we commit to another? It’s not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn’t marry one person. We’d just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone. I want someone to know me, really know me, almost like that person could get into my head. What would that feel like? To have access, to know what it’s like in someone else’s head. To rely on someone else, have him rely on you. That’s not a biological connection like the one between parents and children. This kind of relationship would be chosen. It would be something cooler, harder to achieve than one built on biology and shared genetics. I think that’s it. Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn’t that they’ll remember; it’s that you’ll remember. —Sarah Manguso”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters