Claudia

“My worst habit, according to my mother, is how I deflect compliments with self-deprecation. I need to learn how to accept praise. It boils down to confidence, she says, or lack thereof.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

“You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“People will risk everything for a little bit of something beautiful.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

“Can I ask what’s upsetting you?” I take a breath, try to work out the words, but after a moment I shake my head. “It’s too big to explain,” I say. Because it’s about more than my poem being bad, or that I can’t pick a study spot without exhausting myself. It’s a darker feeling, a fear of there being something wrong with me that I won’t ever be able to fix.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa