Chara

“I had always thought of joy as a shouting, flamboyant thing, that tossed breath into the sky like a ball. Instead it robbed me of my speech and my air. I was pinned in place by joy and I didn't know what to do.
"Come here," he said, and pulled me into his arms.
I pressed my face against his neck. My body sparked, and I couldn't move, except to lean into him. I was filled with happiness, so enormous and terrifying it was as if I'd committed a crime to get it. No one had given me permission to feel this way, and I thought I might not be allowed it. He combed his fingers though my hair and I was frightened with happiness, harrowed by it. There was no way that anyone could feel this much without also knowing they were going to lose it.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“This was one of my first lessons in how you make the future: moment by moment, you seal the doors of possibility behind you.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“Yes. I’m not telling you that I like it or that I understand it. God is a captain whose orders I must trust. He knows this ship better than I.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“We tugged you like a rope
Back and forth.
While you hung over the pit
Like a flag
Dangling in the wind”
― A. A. Winston