Birdie

“I told him about how our second form teacher, Miss Crane, drew the tiniest chalk mark on the blackboard and explained that a point is “zero-dimensional,” meaning it doesn’t actually exist. But once you have two points—two nonexistent points—you can fill in the space between with lots and lots of points, and you get a line, which has length, so it’s now one dimension, which you could argue means it does now exist. Miss Crane dotted her chalk against the board, over and over, in a straight line, demonstrating how a series of nothings could become something. (Actually, you could also argue the line still doesn’t exist, it’s just a concept, but I’d learned by then not to add caveats to everything I said. This was, after all, a love letter.) I told Jack how I leaned forward that day in class as if I stood with my toes hanging over the very precipice of enlightenment. In my naivete, I believed Miss Crane was about to explain something that explained everything. Something I felt I almost already knew, but could not articulate; it was related to infinity and God, the ocean and space, the universe and my dad. Of course, I did not achieve enlightenment in my geometry lesson. Miss Crane put the chalk down and told us to take out our compasses and protractors. I told Jack that when I was with him, I felt like I was close to understanding what I had nearly understood that day.”
― Liane Moriarty, Here One Moment

“people like this. He likes bouncing off the surfaces of their oddness, in the same way he prefers to play tennis against a hard-hitting player. It’s more difficult to cope with the soft lobs of normal, well-adjusted people.”
― Liane Moriarty, Here One Moment

“I told him I was a zero-dimensional, nonexistent point, floating in space, until I met him. Yes, I know. What an embarrassing love letter! Attempting to be poetic about geometry! A modern woman would never write such a thing. You should most definitely exist before you meet a man! You should have your own career, your own hobbies, your own thoughts, and your own financial plan!”
― Liane Moriarty, Here One Moment

“We’re all atheists. You don’t believe in Zeus or Thor or Neptune or Augustus Caesar or Mars or Venus or Sun Ra. You reject a thousand gods. Why should it bother you if someone else rejects a thousand and one?”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose