Elaine

“Beyond this sense, however, of swift transient passage, was the worse, the frightful conviction, of perhaps being in reality no more than Natalie Waite, college girl, daughter to Arnold, and unable to brush away the solidity of this world but forced to deal with it as actual and dreary. Yet then--why, if this were true, the sudden sharp sympathetic picture of the white walls and the nurse coming closer? Why the graphically remembered room with the iron bedstead, the sure knowledge of the moment to slip the poison into the cup, the remembered pain? Why, above all, the constant unusual shock of the sound of her own name said aloud?”
― Shirley Jackson, Hangsaman

“It takes about two or three minutes to make a scribble monster. It takes years to put two and two together. What if your monsters had something to offer you? An unsuspected something?

At some point this monster got out of someone's pen, got out of hand, but here he is again, after being thrown away. In the bin, then out of the bin, and homeless, then in a halfway house you didn't even know existed, though it was right around the corner, literally a ten minute walk from your door, your uncle died there.

Have mercy on the unspeakable monster who has no other way to tell you it's you.”
― Lynda Barry, Making Comics

“What brought me a touch of comfort was knowing not that my husband was there, asleep on the other side of the wall, but that there was a stranger, across the street, still awake and listening to the same rain.”
― An Yu, Ghost Music

“We weren't made with endless time between our fingers like noodles we can stretch as much as we see fit. Even the most resilient noodles break at some point. It is the most ordinary and the most profound thing in the world.”
― An Yu, Ghost Music