Abigail Allison

“[Dessie's] shop was a unique institution in Salinas. It was a woman's world. Here all the rules, and the fears that created the iron rules, went down. The door was closed to men. It was a sanctuary where women could be themselves- smelly, wanton, mystic, conceited, truthful, and interested. The whalebone corsets came off at Dessie's, the sacred corsets that moulded and warped woman-flesh into goddess-flesh. At Dessie's they were women who went to the toilet and overate and scratched and farted. And from this freedom came laughter, roars of laughter.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“What does a sunset have to do with you and me? The sun sets everyday over like parking lots and oil fields and prisons and shit.”
― Emma Pattee, Tilt

“In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived.”
― Susan Orlean, The Library Book

“They stopped at a Subway attached to a gas station. When he placed his order for a foot-long meatball marinara with extra cheese and no vegetables, he wondered if the sandwich artist could tell that his mom had died.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, Kitchens of the Great Midwest