Racheal

“At last- I had already given up hope- he broke throught the magic wall; at last helped me; at last he said a few words. Those were the only words I heard him speak today.
'You are tiring yourself Joseph,' he said softly, his voice full of that touching friendlness and solicitude you know so well. That was all. 'You are tiring yourself Joseph.”
― Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

“That was the way things were. It was like she was mad all the time. Not how a kid gets mad quick so that soon it is all over - but in another way. Only there was nothing to be mad at. Unless the store. But the store hadn’t asked her to take the job. So there was nothing to be mad at. It was like she was cheated. Only nobody had cheated her. So there was nobody to take it out on. However, just the same she had that feeling. Cheated.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“There are moments in history that seem like a mist, as if what really happens matters less that what should have happened. The mists lift suddenly and there we are, my good parents and their good children, their grateful children who phone for no reason but to talk, say their good-nights with a kiss, and look forward to home on the holidays. I see how, in a family like mine, love doesn't have to be earned and it can't be lost. Just for a moment I see us that way; I see us all. Restored and repaired. Reunited. Refulgent.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“Her kitsch was the image of home, all peace, quiet, and harmony, and ruled by a loving mother and a wise father. It was an image that took shape in her after the death of her parents. The less her life resembled the sweetest of dreams, the more sensitive she was to its magic, and more than once she shed tears when the ungrateful daughter in a sentimental film embraced the neglected father as the windows of the happy family's house shone out into the dying day.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being