Liza

“Yeah,’ I said. ‘A place of our own.’ That was what I wanted: a bed where Rosie and I could sleep through the night in each other’s arms, wake up in the morning wrapped together. I would have given anything, anything at all, just for that. Everything else the world had to offer was gravy. I listen to the things people want out of love these days and they blow my mind. I go to the pub with the boys from the squad and listen while they explain, with minute precision, exactly what shape a woman should be, what bits she should shave how, what acts she should perform on which date and what she should always or never do or say or want; I eavesdrop on women in cafés while they reel off lists of which jobs a man is allowed, which cars, which labels, which flowers and restaurants and gemstones get the stamp of approval, and I want to shout, Are you people out of your tiny minds? I never once bought Rosie flowers–too hard for her to explain at home–and I never once wondered whether her ankles looked exactly the way they were supposed to. I wanted her, all mine, and I believed she wanted me.”
― Tana French, Faithful Place

“And we read not one of them all the way through. It was simply impossible. We couldn’t get engrossed. No matter what book we had in our hands we found it simply impossible to refrain from wondering incessantly about what kinds of words exactly were inside the other books. We couldn’t help it could we. We just couldn’t stop ourself from thinking about the other books and the different kinds of words they each contained and when we picked up one of the other books in order to find out it was just the same.”
― Claire-Louise Bennett, Checkout 19

“Later on we often had a book with us. Later on. When we were a bit bigger at last though still nowhere near as big as the rest of them we brought over books with us. Oh loads of books. And sat with them there in the grass by the tree. Just one book in fact. Just one, that’s right. Lots of books, one at a time. That’s it, one at a time. We didn’t very much like tons of books did we. No, not really, and neither do we now. We like one book. Yes, we like one book now and we liked one book then. We went to the library for instance and we soon lost the habit didn’t we of taking out lots and lots of books. Yes.”
― Claire-Louise Bennett, Checkout 19

“If I am destined to be happy with you here—how short is the longest Life—I wish to believe in immortality—I wish to live with you for ever.”
― John Keats, Letters of John Keats